The Silence Broken Continued
by la Fleur de Lis
Summary: Continuation of Rogo's work: A daring and witty woman finds herself homeless, and discovers shelter in the abandoned Opera Populaire. While running from her dark past she is wounded but saved by the Phantom, only to discover she is stranded in his care...
1. The Violin

Hello all! This story is a continuation of a halfway-finished story by Rogo (called The Silence Broken, appropriately enough). You definitely ought to read the chapters she's written before starting with mine so that you understand what is actually going on – plus her beginning is great anyway!

For those who are jumping into my continuation cold, I'll provide a crash-course of background: Manon Moreau is a willful young woman with a turbid past on the run from the Parisian police. She takes refuge in the Palais Garnier, is attacked by an angry and hostile Erik, and flees from the opera house after he suddenly decides to refrain from killing her. A fortnight later, she returns to the opera house as she is running from the police, whom Erik kills after hiding her from them. Manon, however, is shot in the side of her abdomen, and Erik hesitantly takes it upon himself to extract the bullet and take her in. Both are wary of one another as they remain in each other's company – Manon hating feeling so defenseless, and Erik exasperated but still intrigued by her as they hesitantly learn more about one another. Manon has just awoken to find herself moved from her original room in the upper floors down to Erik's cavern – which is where we pick up here! Enjoy.

(In recent news – I've combined chapters one and two because chapter one was pretty short and basically didn't have much flow or context. The first section is also the final bit of Rogo's last chapter, so hopefully this will make for a more engaging and contextualized chapter!)

* * *

Hand pressed to her side she sat down and looked at up at him, then around at the cavern.

"Welcome to my humble abode," the Phantom said, eyes riveted on her as she stared around in admiration.

"It's certainly distinctive," she said quietly. Silence settled between them again. Then Manon spoke up, eyes curious.

"It was you... the music, Wasn't it?" The phantom nodded, and gestured to the pipe organ.

"Indeed, forgive me if I disturbed your sleep."

Manon looked at him in intriguingly, "It was beautiful. ...It seems you are a knight in shining armor, a surgeon, and a musician all at once."

He let out a soft chuckle and Manon's heart skipped a beat. She found that she liked his laugh, deep and cool as it was. Part of his smile disappeared into the mask, as his lips curved into a dark smirk on the other side of his face. Manon secretly noticed the graceful way his unkempt hair fell before of dark brows.

The Phantom wore simple black trousers and a loose open shirt revealing the welcome familiar chest…

Manon closed her eyes and looked away gritting her teeth.

Manon, stop it!

* * *

Leaning his shoulder against the cool stone wall, the Phantom watched the pantomime of reactions playing across Manon's face – not with his usual cynicism, but with a quiet, considering sincerity. It was quite the opposite his typical, mocking demeanor.

He spoke again:

"I apologize if you were alarmed to wake up in your new surroundings" he said slowly and evenly, "the room in which you previously slept has been uninhabited for too long to be fit to dwell in now."

_Seemed okay to me…_ thought Manon. It had been a roof, hadn't it? But then again, she had to hand it to him, (as she looked around her at the strange clash between the elemental cragginess of the cavern and the Baroque luxury of its furnishings,) it was a damn sight more comfortable and, well, _interesting_ being in then the drab, cold room above.

She noticed him staring at her and she responded, quickly, though truthfully,

"My alarm soon gave way to amazement…I mean, this place…" she gestured unnecessarily towards the cavern at large, but retracted her arm quickly as pain shot through her side. She hissed her next words out through gritted teeth, "How...how did you come by it?"

He nearly chuckled at how comically ironic the banality of her choice of words was. How did he come by it? It was like she was inquiring after a summer home he'd just purchased, rather than a cave under an opera house. But he saw only sincere curiosity in her face, and looked at her for a moment, considering how much to tell her. Then...

"Well…it isn't exactly property that's highly in demand, now is it?" he asked archly, though with a trace of a smile. He walked a few paces to the side and sank down onto the organ bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as he looked at her. He gestured towards the walls and continued, "It is…undisturbed here, and it is quiet. As I alluded to before, I don't exactly make it a habit to mingle with high Parisian society. This place makes that easy."

Manon didn't exactly know how to respond. She just looked at him, waiting for him to continue. When he did not, she said the first thing that came to her mind,

"Well... having an opera house for a roof is pretty convenient for your being a musician, wouldn't you say?"

He shrugged with a guarded look in his eye.

"The two influenced one another, it's true."

The sudden coldness of his expression told Manon that this was a topic she'd be well-advised to waltz right on past. She watched as he turned away and fingered the edges of the music sheets lying on his desk. He murmured hollowly as he toyed with what looked like a dried, red rose,

"There is something to be said for…and against… being forever reminded of one's purpose…"

The rose fell from his hands onto the desk.

Erik took a deep breath, tearing his eyes from the rose to look at his hands. Why had he let himself carry on like that? More to give himself something to do than anything else, he quickly straightened the many papers littering his desk. Though he found himself apprehensively intrigued by Moreau's presence, he had, by choice, told her almost nothing of himself during their time together. Starting now did not seem like a positive idea.

Manon watched as he handled the sheaves of parchment with an unaccustomed tenderness. She had been riveted by his words before, never having even considered his past, or indeed, that he had one at all. All she truly knew of him was what Charles had told her when she was young.

That, and the infamous tales of the Opera Ghost…

She wrapped her arms around herself subconsciously, watching him. She sensed that she shouldn't press him further, but her curiosity got the better of her –

"And…what was this purpose?" she asked with attempted casualness, though after she said it she noticed with annoyance how vapid her voice had sounded.

He looked at her for a moment almost appraisingly, and then…

"Music." He said simply.

* * *

Manon shivered, but not from the cold, though a cold breeze had just blown through the cavern moments before. At the phantom's words, she had felt a slight (but not unpleasant) turn in her stomach.

_Ah…_ she thought. Though he was still thoroughly guarded and rather enigmatic to her, she supposed that this answer did correlate with each (of the many) nuances she had glimpsed of the phantom during her time here…his dark intensity, that otherworldly music she had heard that cold night before, the way he spoke, the way he moved…music as a life-force, how strange. It occurred on her how very different she and he must be….

The phantom looked up from his hands and seemed to come out of a reverie as he saw her shiver, his eyes registering the thin muslin of the ragged shift she still wore. Wordlessly, he stood and leaned across her to the opposite side of the mahogany desk and retrieved his own thick cloak from a hook on the wall.

Manon would not help but catch the scent of him as he reached for it…warm, spicy, and distinctly male. Appropriately, it also smelled of something like candle smoke. She swallowed as he proceeded to swing it elegantly over her shoulders and clasp it gently beneath her throat.

She looked up at him in tacit thanks and then flicked her eyes away quickly, wrapping the warm, fine wool tightly about herself modestly.

He studied her for a moment more, tapping a finger on his folded arms, then turned back to the organ. He situated himself loosely on the bench, toying with an ink-stained quill lying on the keys.

Manon approached him warily, limping along…. As he was obviously a creature of solitude, and she one of mistrust, both were still rather ill at ease in the company of one another. This fact made Manon feel quite skittish…she hated not knowing what to expect from people, and certainly she could not guess the moves of this man… a man who had come within moments of throttling her, yet who had also quite frankly saved her life. And for this, Manon was determined to put forth at least some semblance of gratitude and manners, even if they were emotions she wasn't used to expressing.

He raised his visible brow as she approached, and slid over hesitantly on the bench to make room for her.

"May I…?" she said cautiously but softly, her eyes on the organ. After a moment he nodded silently and watched her as she sat quietly on the edge, still clutching his cloak around her with one hand. Her eyes roved over the massive pipes and opaline keys appreciatively. They slid closed as she hovered one hand over the keys, an ethereal smile coming over her features.

She seemed, to Erik, to be caught between worlds…suspended between the abyss of some memory and the corporeal instrument before her.

_What could she be thinking?_ He found himself wondering.

Again, he unwillingly found himself captured by the curve of her shoulder…His eyes lazily followed the path of a stray lock of her hair, escaped from the cloak, brushing gently across her collarbone with the rise and fall of her breaths. Pale skin covered her shoulders and the slender curve of her neck…

Even more unwillingly, he was reminded of the frail beauty of another woman. Though Moreau possessed none of _her_ innocent delicacy, the feminine curve of her neck was nonetheless painfully reminiscent of _hers_…and of the painfully beautiful sound that would rise out of it…_Oh God…._

Wrenching his eyes away from her before the torrent of memories again claimed him – disgusted with himself, disgusted with her (though she was hardly at fault) he forced his eyes to settle elsewhere, anywhere, landing on his inkwell sitting on the organ.

A slight sound from the woman to his right brought him back – a soft, slightly choked gasp. He turned and looked at her stiffly, frowning. Erik suddenly felt very tense in her presence, and averted his eyes from her face so as to prevent any more memories from rising. Even so, he could not help but follow her riveted gaze that was fixed on a spot some inches over his shoulder.

He glanced over, and his gaze fell on a small niche carved out of the wall…on the glowing rosewood, the slim neck, the dully-glinting tuning keys, and dusty strings of a violin.

_Ah,_ he thought. _That._

After _that_ night, years ago, the Palais Garnier had been abandoned by those two buffoon managers, André and Firmin…they had left it all too hastily to the mercy of the charred decay that was slowly consuming the once-magnificent structure. While the wounded man inside of Erik had reveled in the ruination of the beautiful building that had at once given him reason to live, then swiftly robbed him of it, the musician and artist inside of him had mourned the loss of such a monument to the arts.

The violin itself was, admittedly, a rather stunning piece. It had been one of the few artifacts he rescued from the ruin engulfing the Opera Populaire.

He looked at Moreau again; she was still staring at the violin. Erik took her apparent fascination with the instrument as an indication that she would like to see it more closely and perhaps hold it. Though still feeling rather standoffish, he felt almost guilty for channeling his hostility towards her for something she could not have prevented.

He couldn't think of any reason why she shouldn't be able to hold it. He reached over into its niche, grasped the wooden neck coolly in his hand, and brought it out. The translucent red varnish made it seem almost luminous in the dim light, highlighting the subtle grain of the wood. He caressed the fret board lightly with a fingertip before turning back to the woman beside him.

_Does she play?_ Erik wondered, the thought coming to him suddenly.

He held it out to her without saying anything…but as he did so, her eyes – still fixed on the violin – suddenly clouded over with a profound sadness and turmoil. Erik could see a myriad of emotions flickering in their chestnut depths, all fading too quickly, one after the other, for him to perceive their meanings.

Frowning impatiently at her odd behavior, he held out the violin farther, gesturing for her to take it. But as he did so, a look of fearful alarm wrenched her features and she moved quickly backwards, groping blindly at the bench. He placed the violin on top the organ and stared at her, momentarily stunned, as she scrambled to the other side, though Erik could not for the life of him understand why.

Suddenly, though, in her haste to put distance between herself and the instrument, Manon had reached the edge without noticing. He watched with an odd leap in his chest as she bonelessly slid sideways off the bench.

In one fluid motion, he had caught her, barely inches short of hitting the floor. With his right arm wrapped around the front of her waist and his left supporting her head, he eased her back up into a sitting position, but she slumped over against him, her dark eyes whirlpools of memory and emotion. His brow furrowed. _What the devil…_

Her face was pressed into his neck, her warm, scented hair slithering across his chest. Erik swallowed tightly, an action made doubly more difficult by the rough, wooly sensation in his mouth. His heartbeat quickened slightly, a solid, steady rhythm.

He stood up roughly, in part to bring Moreau to a more facile seat, and in part to rid himself of these strange and irritating reactions he had to her nearness. Knowing full-well their meaning, these sensations deeply unnerved and rather angered him all the same.

He lifted her easily, wondering if this damned woman was more trouble than she was worth. He hefted her into her arms and rose to bring her over to a divan that stood along the back wall of the room. He was lowering her down when he noticed a slight reddening of the bandages on her side. Or had they already been red?

_Damnation,_ he thought savagely, _It's not as though I have an unlimited store of supplies with which I can tend to this wench constantly! Nor patience, for that matter…_

He nonetheless proceeded to wrap her snugly in the velvet throw that was slung over the side of the divan, and blew out several of the nearby candles before retreating into the shadows.


	2. Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Hello my dears, I apologize for my little (okay, my lengthy) hiatus - my applications were brutal! But that's all done with now and I've got a few more chapters in the mill right now, so hopefully I'll have the next one up sometime during April. Expedited, of course, by your reviews :)

Thanks to de Bernières for the diction, to Rogo for the story, and to Leroux for everything except Manon.

* * *

_"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus"_

* * *

Manon awoke several hours later to the rich and welcoming smell of cinnamon in the air. The spicy scent rousing her effectively, she cracked her eyes open blearily and looked about her. She saw that she was once more nestled deep into a velvet coverlet. Stretching out luxuriantly, she recoiled quickly when she remembered the wound in her side that would surely protest fiercely to such movement. Manon smiled wryly. _I'm getting too used to this damned cut_, she thought bitterly. She sat up slowly, propping an elbow on the arm of the carved wood of the divan - then did a double take.

_This…what? How did I…_

Manon frowned, unable to recall ever ending up on the sofa. She remembered seeing the cavernous room and being amazed; that at least was certain. She stared wildly about her until her eyes fell upon the organ several paces from her.

_Oh…_she realized mutely. Oh God…that's _right_…. 

After waking, she had sat at the organ…ah, such a breathtaking instrument! Manon had no personal experience or extensive knowledge of such an instrument, but she had dabbled at the piano, years ago, and could certainly appreciate such grandeur and quality when she saw it.

_But then…_ Manon frowned and her thoughts turned as she remembered the turn of events that had followed.

_The violin, _she remembered suddenly. _So…so real…but no…It was too close, she…**Charles**…_

Manon buried her face in her hands, trying to block the flood of memories that the violin had unearthed, as well as to try and temper her embarrassment at her own reaction the night before.

_Oh God, how humiliating_, she berated herself. Had she really just _fallen_, just like that? Well, it wasn't as though she wasn't troubled at the time. But that was no excuse.

Brushing these thoughts from her mind, Manon reminded herself that at least Erik had had the decency not to press her for explanations and had at least moved her to the divan in her pathetic state.

_Erik…_

She sat up a little straighter, eyes searching the cavern more thoroughly, searching for a sign of him, not to mention the source of that heavenly smell….

After searching fruitlessly for a few moments, her eyes finally fell upon Eri-the _Phantom's_ solid form sprawled in an armchair. He was in an alcove set slightly farther back from the rest of the room, close to the bed chamber.

It was a room that Manon had not noticed before, in her cursory inspection of the cavern. She could see that a large dark blue curtain was tied back to the side of the doorway…it must have been covering the doorway when she had last been awake. It was old and slightly tattered, but was thick and held vestiges of a former elegance.

Every wall had been transformed into a bookshelf, crammed with hundreds of books with peeling spines and leather bound covers, some embossed with titles in foreign tongues that Manon didn't understand. Other shelves held an assortment of small mechanical contraptions. Some were completed, and some were half-finished, flanked by a hodgepodge of other parts and folded sheets of paper with diagrams sketched on them.

It was a room rather unlike the general expanse of the rest of his home. It seemed…smaller, _cozier_, even – though she hesitated to use that word to describe anything in the phantom's home. It seemed too decrepitly grand for such a description.

Unsure of what she would do once she got there, Manon gingerly rose from her warm bundle on the divan and walked slowly over to where he was seated. He was sitting back languidly and examining one of several sheets of music he held in his hand with a slight frown of concentration on his face. A steaming cup sat at his feet, presumably the source of the aroma Manon had awoken to.

He looked up as she entered, her long hair slightly matted from sleep and the velvet throw dragging behind her. He gave her a small nod of greeting when she gave a hesitant hello. Manon bit her lip and studied the floor, unsure of what to say or do. Should she mention the night before? She scoffed inwardly. That would lead to questions she had _no_ intention of answering.

She was saved the trouble of deciding by his voice, which came sliding through the heavy silence.

"I trust you slept well?" he asked, his voice low and even. "I realize that the bed may have been more comfortable, but the divan did at the time seem to be the more logical choice, given our location and the circumstances..."

The air was unbearably thick. Manon was painfully aware of theawkwardness, unasked questions, and something she couldn't name leering at her.

He stared at her a moment more…She shifted uncomfortably and drew the throw more tightly around her as she felt his gaze penetrating her. However, he said nothing more on the subject and returned to the music in his lap, for which Manon felt greatly relieved.

Not having been instructed as to where to sit, Manon bit her lip and shrugged to herself, making her way to a cushioned chaise a few feet from his.

Chewing on a thumbnail, she studied him surreptitiously from beneath her lashes. He was rifling through the papers now, studying one for a moment before flicking it away impatiently. He let out a long, slow sigh that could have been of frustration – it was thoroughly unclear to Manon – and he ran his broad hands tiredly through his dark hair. She shifted slightly in her chair, wishing all manner of evils on this infernal wound in her side, if only to take her mind off of the way his hands grasped his hair in exasperation….

Letting her left leg slide out slightly from where it had been curled under her, Manon watched as the phantom laid his papers on his lap and took a long draught from his mug. As he lowered it from his mouth his eyes flicked over to where she was sitting quietly in her chair. She blinked and lowered her gaze, horrified to be caught staring so blatantly at him. She busied herself with adjusting the velvet throw around her, but could not help but guiltily glance up at him again as she did so. For an instant, his eyes once again met hers.

Manon felt like smacking herself. It was like some inescapable practiced reflex…Something about the way he was poring over his music made her eyes fall upon him with damn near alarming regularity. Or maybe it was the way his lips parted in concentration, or the way his dark hair would occasionally fall into his eyes that was making her stare….

The infuriating thing was, he kept catching her at it! He would look up at her from his music just as her gaze shifted to him and regard her, unblinkingly, until she would flush and drop her eyes, annoyed at herself and annoyed at him for catching her with such apparent ease. His frank, ironic, gaze would captivate her, if only for a few moments, before she would force herself to look away.

_Damn it, Manon, stop blushing like a schoolgirl you fool! _She berated herself silently, and vowed to keep her eyes on the books on the shelves. Momentarily she found herself wishing she could read their beautifully scrawled titles.

But when she glanced furtively back up, it would be at the exact timethat he looked up again as well, holding her by a wry smile and a raised brow.

It was just…infuriating! _This whole affair would be over and done with if you would just stop looking at him, idiot._ What nasty design of fate was this? She wanted to cry out in frustration and annoyance. That, or simply stalk off and find some other means of occupying herself.

The latter obviously not being an option, Manon instead decided to switch tactics in this war of eyes, annoyed by her own seemingly coy behavior. She felt the utmost fool for averting her eyes after holding his burning gaze for only a few moments. Instead of avoiding brazenness by looking down, she decided to hold her ground and wait for his boldness to fail.

The next time their eyes met, Manon held fast but unexpectedly found herself lost in those tawny pools of amber. Still not looking away, she felt her mind slacken as she returned his steady, unsmiling, yet not unkind gaze.

Were his eyes gold, or were they green? It was surprisingly difficult to tell. They seemed to be infernos of golden heat, yet infused with the dark gold were steaks of deepest green. She found herself thinking idly that, on the whole, it was a rather magnetic affect…

_No! This is your pride, not flirtation, you tart. Focus._ She tried her best to harden her gaze, to make it serious and unfriendly. And failed rather dismally.

Manon steeled herself as an odd breeze rippled through the cavern and stung at her eyes. Still watching the phantom, she noted dryly that he seemed wholly unaffected by the cold air.

Her eyes began to water, and maddeningly, she was forced to look away and blink several times to regain her composure.

Somehow feeling that she knew full-well whathis reaction would be, Manon kept her eyes on the opposite wall, trying with false nonchalance to pretend as if the entire affair had not happened at all. She kept her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, trying but failing to halt the childish, embarrassed smile threatening to overtake her lips.

The corners of her mouth were involuntarily tugged upward, however. And when she looked over to her adversary, Manon was secretly delighted to see a similar expression on his face. When their eyes met again, his face spread into a wide, slow smirk.

"I win" he said quietly, with a slight cock of his brow.

Manon let out a short breath and burst into relieved but unsure laughter, shrugging. She wasn't entirely sure why she should feel relieved, but it was as though the tension and awkwardness had lifted with the rich, lilting sound of a laugh that has been far too long out of use.

* * *

Erik sat up straighter in his chair, feeling infinitely more relaxed. The tension that had filled the room when Manon had walked in had been awash with the unpleasant memories she had aroused in his mind the night before, his general disuse to having visitors, and some discomfort of her own. He'd had a wry suspicion that it was embarrassment at her near-fainting the previous night. Oddly, though, he found that after bearing witness to her fortitude while he had removed the bullet from her side, he had a renewed sense of grudging respect for her in general. With that came a sort of assumed justification in his mind that verified her reaction to whatever memories the violin had evoked. Perhaps her dreams had something to do with it…God knew that HE had enough memories to choke the life from all of Paris. 

Much to his annoyance, when she had first sat down, the thick air and her presence had sufficiently distracted him from his work so that he could make no progress whatsoever with her in the room. He tried futilely to critique his endless sheets of music, the only proof that he had existed these past three years. Paltry stuff, it was. He didn't know why he was bothering to try and salvage it, but he felt that he had to occupy himself somehow when he was around Manon, or else his mind would wander places where he had no intention of letting it wander…

_Stop it! You capricious fool, what's the matter with you?_

To clear his thoughts, he took a long, conclusive draught from the hot spiced tea at his feet, and while doing so he caught Manon's eye. She had looked away quickly and he had smirked to himself…

He was used to people staring at his mask, though in Persia he had even gotten glances that weren't because of the mask. But that wasyears ago.Now, he knew that when people looked, it was because they were wondering what sort of horrible deformity lay beneath it. But somehow, Manon's frequent glances up at him seemed tobelong inan entirely different realm. And his own glances back up at her seemed to have taken on a will of their own, too…

For a time afterwards he found himself unable to concentrate on his music even more so than before, and looked up every so often without really knowing why. It was more interesting than his worthless attempts at composing, he supposed.

Yet in their consequent war of eyes, (by which he found himself greatly entertained) he also found himself unable to put an end to it.

Since when had he been given to these childish games? He felt rather empowered by her apparent frustration with herself, but even if she had not been, Erik knew that he would have kept looking up all the same. It was a curious sensation, really. He never felt the need to look away before she did, teasing her mercilessly with his eyes every time he met her gaze again. It was hard to say who looked at the other first.

After a time, she had emboldened her gaze and stared at him almost fiercely, as if determined not to look away again. As usual, unable to resist a challenge, Erik stared right back. Her face softened ever so slightly, but she kept right on staring. Erik raised his left eyebrow sardonically in attempts to make Manon laugh, and though her lips twitched, her face betrayed nothing.

To his good fortune, a cool breeze rippled through the cavern moments later. Its coldness didn't affect Erik in the slightest…he was far too used to it to care. But Manon apparently wasn't and was the first to break the eye contact by looking away.

Erik couldn't remember having any sort of playful banter in years, and was filled with a sort of unholy jubilation that he had triumphed. Churlishly, he had been unable to prevent the quiet "I won," from escaping, and in its wake all the tension had dissipated and Manon burst into laughter. Erik could not help but proffer a grin and a low chuckle of his own. Good God, when was the last time he had actually _laughed?_ Not a dry laugh of sarcasm or of disgust, but just out of general mirth? Years, certainly. But he just shrugged to himself, and the pair of them just sat there, foolishly, laughing away at truly nothing at all.

* * *

So how am I doing with Rogo's work? Feedback would be divine.

* * *


	3. A Certain Sort Of Company

More to come soon ;)

* * *

_Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,  
For thee and for myself no quiet find.  
-William Shakespeare_

* * *

An hour after their little banter, Manon was to be found seated comfortably on the divan near his mahogany desk with a steaming mug of her own. 

The phantom looked up quickly as he saw Manon wince and touch her side gingerly as she adjusted herself on the divan. He addressed her again, almost sharply.

"It hasn't begun to bleed again, has it?" He looked at her shrewdly

"No, no it hasn't," Manon, caught off-guard,replied almost defensively.

The phantom looked at her a moment more. Then, returning to his papers he said matter-of-factly,

"Well, regardless, I still need to clean the wound and check on its progress."

Swallowing, Manon nodded and stood to return her now empty mug to an empty china basin. The contents of the mug – she hesitantly would call it 'tea', she supposed - was quite unlike anything she had ever tasted. It was a strange and heady blend of nutmeg, cardamom, pepper and cinnamon was boiled in water and milk to create a surprisingly rich and soothing taste. Manon stood for a moment, enjoying the ghosts of its flavors still roaming about her lips and mouth.

She walked back and suddenly caught sight of her foot sticking out from the fringed tassels on the edge of the throw she still wore wrapped around her like an infant. The foot was rough and calloused, streaked with brown dirt and grime caked on from when, so long ago it seemed, she had spent days wandering and evading, trying to find a safe and anonymous place to stay.

Well, she wasn't still running, was she? Physically, that was. And this place, wherever exactly she was, was sure as hell anonymous enough…

She looked over at the phantom, chewing on her lower lip.

Erik looked up, seeing that Moreau was standing there, apparently wishing to say something – though she seemed to be in no particular hurry to say it. She seemed to be trying to articulate a sentence while simultaneously deciding whether or not she actually wanted to say it.

"Monsieur, I… is there anywhere…I mean to say, if it's not too much trouble…would you… accompany me to… is there somewhere I can bathe?"

Erik looked at her incredulously. Was that _it?_ It wasn't exactly an unreasonable request.

He couldn't resist goading her though, and chuckled dryly.

"I hardly think that my "company" is just what you need at this particular juncture, mademoiselle," he remarked cynically, challenging her with his eyes.

Manon stared at him, working out what he had just said…..Oh God, surely he didn't think…?

"You know perfectly well that wasn't what I meant, you ass" she muttered darkly, feeling her face grow hot and becoming annoyed at him for patronizing her.

"I only meant that you would need to tell me where…" but she trailed off when she saw his smirk. Damn it, why had that been so difficult? It wasn't as though she had been asking him for his first-born child.

With a significant effort, Manon was able to overcome the supreme urge she had to storm off in frustration, and stood waiting for his response.

After a moment, Erik turned wordlessly and beckoned Moreau to follow him. Instead of opting to lead her to the area of his lake in which he usually bathed, he had the feeling that someone not used to bathing in the water's icy embrace may not take kindly to it. He himself did not particularly mind…he was used to coldness, it suited him. Perhaps he even preferred it.

He shook his head to clear these thoughts. Regardless, the warm water would do Moreau's wound a world of good. It would make the skin and muscle more supple and easier to examine when he would check its progress later on.

He lead her down the steps towards the cold edge of the lake so that she could clamber, rather ungracefully, into the boat waiting plaintatively at the water's edge. He stepped in after her and began to pole them slowly along the water's surface.

There was no sound except for the water lapping softly at the side of the boat.

Manon sat, trailing one finger idly along in the water as the phantom steadily pushed the vessel onward, lost in his own thoughts.

Manon sat very much the same way, thinking, reflecting on how thoroughly strange the entire situation was, on how unsure and frankly bewildered she was at how little control she seemed to have over her fate at the moment.

And she was, if nothing, a woman who hated to feel helpless.

It wasas though she were balancing on the edge of a blade; a precarious existence where she could only see the possibility of the hell of capture by Paris' finest….

The other side of the blade was complete darkness to her, and for that matter, so was the blade itself. Her bearings were all shot to pieces, and her attitude towards her captor/savior were annoyingly and bizarrely conflicted. Indeed, captor or savior? What sort of blade was this that she was balancing on, with a man who both intrigued and admittedly intimidated her? Balance, indeed. With him, she felt strangely unnerved and blind to his next move, yet safer than she could ever remember feeling.

Manon could not help but feel as if she were plunging into a shadowy and volatile path ahead, and for once she could not for the life of her see any alternative, nor could she make sense of any of the fact that perhaps she didn't want to...


	4. On Soap and Stubbornness

Hello, my lovelies! I know, I know, I disappeared. But I'm back! And I'm making up for it with a nice long chapter. Thank you to those of you who stuck around to read this - **please** give me feedback to tell me what you think (other than that I shouldn't disappear for half a year at a time!) I haven't given up on our dear Manon just yet...

* * *

After a time, they reached the opposite shore. The phantom stepped out lightly and loosely tethered the boat to an iron ring fixed to the rock wall, and held the craft steady so that Manon could splash down next to him. He turned and began to walk down a passageway leading back up to the room where he had brought her down from. However after a few moments he looked over his shoulder to find that she was still several paces behind him.

She was clutching her side, walking slightly bent over, with one hand pressed to the wall for support. Her jaw was set tightly, and her dark eyes were narrowed in pain and concentration. Erik could see that she was shaking slightly from the obvious effort she was exerting in order to continue walking.

He shut his eyes for a moment and exhaled softly, but then opened them again and walked back towards her. How had he not seen this coming? Obviously she was still weak. Hell, she'd had trouble walking across the room only the way before. Quite frankly he was impressed that she had made it this far successfully.

As he walked back to her, he also realized how dark it was compared to back in his home. This was probably why she had been hanging on to the wall and squinting as she had been, he realized. His eyes, accustomed to the darkness, had to trouble peering cat-like through the gloom. He retrieved the lantern from the boat at the water's edge and walked back up to where Moreau was standing and looking around warily.

Erik stood for a moment, awkwardly.

"If you will…lean on my shoulder, mademoiselle, we can be on our way up the passage to the rooms above," he said, holding an arm out stiffly.

She looked at him shrewdly and then straightened abruptly.

"I can manage myself, monsieur, thank you very much," she said, more coldly than she meant to. She'd be damned if she was going to act like such a wilting flower if she could help it. She took a solid step forward as if just to prove her point.

"Mademoiselle…" Erik began, stepping forward again, slipping an arm around the middle of her back to support her weigh, but she pushed him away again indignantly.

"MANON!" Erik burst out, startling her. "If you tear that wound in your side even further, it is I who shall have to mend it! I am not trying to damage your pride, merely do what is logical!"

Manon stood still, momentarily stunned by his sudden outburst. But after a second, the flame of indignation shrank in her chest, and she hesitantly let herself lean upon his arm, gripping his shoulder as he tightened his hold on her back when he felt her falter.

* * *

After what seemed to Erik like ages, they finally reached the back of the mirror in Manon's former room. Strange, that he should be the one to be disconcerted by the lengthy trek upwards through the catacombs. He walked them fairly regularly nowadays, traveling up to his theater just to savor his freedom to do so. 

Now, however, he had other things his mind was focusing on, making the walk seem interminable.

He had to focus on navigating the passageways…

On holding the lantern high

On making sure that Manon was walking easily…

On ignoring that deeply disturbing but thoroughly pleasurable sensation he felt when Manon's soft grunts of effort caused her body to thrum against his chest…

Erik tore himself away from thoughts for which he was mentally berating himself for thinking even as he thought them, and pressed the hidden mechanism and slid open the mirror and the pair of them eased through it. He lead her down the dark hallways into the opulent dressing rooms of none other than La Carlotta, of all people. Erik left Manon at the door and entered the dusty room, closing his eyes for a moment. Ah, the tricks he had played on the diva! This room had been the locale of much callous entertainment in the past, and Erik chuckled inwardly just thinking about it. A finicky woman, the primadonna had insisted that her dressing room be equipped with a porcelain basin attached to a cistern for her to bathe in whenever she liked. He had never had much use for it before, but his mind had immediately jumped to it when Moreau had mentioned the desire to bathe.

He returned to the hallway where Manon still stood. Despite herself, she shivered. Damn, it was cold. It was certainly cold down below, yes, but at least there, there were candles and tapestries and the like to keep he area warm. Wasn't he going to show her a place that she could bathe? She eyed him suspiciously, only to see him surveying her appraisingly.

"What?" she asked defensively

After a moment more, he looked back up.

"Come," he said enigmatically, taking her arm once again and leading her a short way down the corridor to a second dressing room. Manon ducked beneath the elegant drapes of cobwebs that greeted her and settled gently into her hair as she stepped into the room and twisted her head around to take in the whole scene.

Dusty rows of gowns and what looked like ballet costumes lines the walls in wooden armoires like a vivid rainbow disguised by soft gray veils. Spun-glass trinkets stood complacently along carved wooden shelves along the top edges of the walls….graceful flowers and prowling animals, dancers and ladies and angels all sat poised, as if they had all been in the midst of an intricate and thoroughly pleasant sort of dance when the inconveniences of time and neglect had taken them by surprise, sprinkling their festivities with a velvet layer of dust and freezing them mid-step. Manon found them enchanting.

"This was the dressing room of La Sorelli, prima ballerina of the corps de ballet," he told Manon over his shoulder. "These are largely ballet ensembles, but these…" he ran a hand over a row of garments in a corner among which were an array of day gowns, chemises, and petticoats. "You are welcome to choose several gowns to replace your own….frock. It does look rather the worse for wear," he smirked callously. Manon's face grew warm and she frowned. _Ass_, she thought, letting the sentiment blaze through her eyes.

The phantom's smirk faded slightly, and he looked down at the ground awkwardly for a moment. Manon watched grumpily as he looked up and brushed his hand along the tops of the gowns, brushing them off, temporarily enveloping the two of them in a haze of dust. She stepped back coughing slightly, but bit back a waspish remark as she saw his hand linger almost gently on something made of a wine-colored raw silk.

Erik looked back up at her and she quickly pretended to have been looking down at the floor.

"I will go to fill the basin with hot water from the cistern" he said, sliding back into his business-like demeanor. "You remember which was the room I showed you?"

Manon nodded.

"Good…..there are plenty of….bath oils, and soaps and such left over from La Carlotta which you may use at your leisure," – he said this with almost comic awkwardness, as if he was unused to such frivolities as scented frippery and found them distasteful – "When you have finished, call out for me and I will be with you presently."

"Al-..alright…yes…thank you," Manon said to his retreating form.

After he had left, Manon exhaled deeply. She wished….she wished she didn't always feel as if she was _imposing_ so much. Manon _hated_ being so indebted to someone else, so reliant.

Then again…

This Phantom had been nothing but accommodating to her for the entire time she had been in his care. Hadn't he taken the initiative to harbor her in the first place?

Oh well. What was the point of pondering it? She had the deepest feeling that even if she wanted to leave, he would have made it very difficult for her.

She started thumbing through the rack, examining each piece critically. Some of them were terribly provocative, she noticed. What's more, she hadn't worn anything like these in years…anything remotely feminine had always been too cumbersome for someone who spent their days running, hiding, pretending they didn't exist…

_Well,_ she though, _I'm not exactly running anymore, am I?_ She fingered the lace-trimmed neckline of a midnight-blue gown.

Manon closed her eyes, breathed in as much as she possibly could, and blew it all out, smiling. She _wasn't_ running anymore. She had never felt safer than in this "Phantom's" care. And damn it, she wasn't going to continue wearing rough, heavy clothes that she was _stolen_, that had all the appeal of a burlap sack. Actually, she was fairly certain that parts of her ensemble _had_ been fashioned from a burlap sack.

Humming to herself now, Manon continued to look through the gowns, adding to her blue choice ones in soft green, black gossamer, soft, dove-gray wool, russet and inky violet They were all finer and far lovelier than she was used to lately, but they were the simplest and least extravagant she could find. Manon also selected a few delicate chemises, a corset and a robe.

_This Sorelli character must have been quite the talented dancer_ Manon thought, in awe of the extraordinary finery of just the undergarments, let alone the rest of the gowns. She caught sight of a few gaudy and laughably risqué pieces. _On and off the stage, I see!_ Manon thought, laughing out loud.

She was about to leave when her eye caught the sleeve of the wine-colored gown the phantom's hand had lingered on. She pulled it out, gazing at its flowing seams, capped sleeves and wide neckline. She stood still for a moment, thinking, and then added it to her pile. Then she left the room.

Manon made her way down the corridor holding both her gowns and her side, and finally found Carlotta's dressing room again. True to his word, the Phantom had filled the large porcelain basin behind the partition with steaming water. She also found a long shelf holding several dozen glass vials, each holding some sort of bath oil or other. Manon examined them and smelled a few hesitantly, but after the first one she reeled back, choking. What _were_ these hideous scents?! Each one she smelled was some gaudy floral concoction, each more overpowering than the last. In attempts to find something, _anything_ that would clean off the grime on her body but didn't make her eyes water, she shuffled the clinking bottles around and finally found a few bars of milled _savon_ still wrapped in thick wax paper. Praying fervently that this meant that their scents weren't cloying enough for the former diva, Manon discovered to her pleasure that they held the softer scents of cinnamon, almond and vanilla.

Feeling slightly foolish and ill-at-ease with all of these fine fabrics and bath oils and soaps in her arms, Manon dumped them unceremoniously onto a chair beside the large basin which held the invitingly hot bath water.

Suddenly, Manon's head spun as she did so, and she had to grab the back of the chair to keep from falling over. Her wound felt oddly numb for a moment, and then it prickled uncomfortably. And then the sensations faded, leaving her bewildered.

_Odd_, Manon thought, frowning, but she shook it off.

Moving gingerly so as not to aggravate her injury further, Manon peeled off her dirty chemise and faded undergarments, tossing them up to hand over the folding dividers that stood next to the basin.

_Never have to wear those again, _thought Manon with a grim smile.

As she slid into the hot, perfumed water, though she tried to enjoy the sensation of what felt like years worth of grime soaking off, she still felt like the guarded, suspicious creature that running for so long had made her. Where had sitting around, being comfortable ever gotten her? Chased into dark alleys, that was where. The sting of anger and resentment threatened to overtake her thoughts, but she belied them.

_Forget it_ she told herself sternly, and Manon gradually allowed herself to surrender reluctantly to the feminine bliss of a good hot bath. Fugitive though she may be, she was still above all things a woman. A small, feline smile, hesitant but distinct, tipped the corners of her mouth upward inadvertently as she thought this.

The minutes ticked by slowly. Unaccustomed to having such leisurely time to bathe, Manon found that she was rather enjoying herself. She lazily dribbled streams of water across her chest and knees and abdomen, creating patterns of little rivulets that flowed across her skin. She slid the bar of almond oil soap in patterns down her arms, flicking the suds with her toes. Manon remembered to pay particular attention to her feet, and scrubbed at them vigorously until they were pink. She kneaded the back of her neck and shoulders, less to clean them, just reveling in the way that the heat, oil and pressure seemed to dissolve the knots that had formed, unbraiding the tension which had settled so deeply in.

So _this_ was what it felt like to be relaxed, thought Manon wryly. She'd nearly forgotten. Letting her long, sopping hair trail down to the floor, Manon eased her head back onto the edge of the basin and exhaled in a hum of pleasure.

Inhale….exhale. Inhale….exhale…

"_What, late again, Manon?"_

_Manon heard a small chuckle as she rushed breathlessly into the small, dusty room, banging the door shut behind her. The ever-welcome sight of Charles met her eyes, his curly hair the color of summer straw, rumpled from the day. He sat astride an old wooden chair, tapping a wood and horsehair bow against his knee as she dropped herself ungracefully into the matching chair beside him. _

"_I'm sorry, Charles, truly I am….but it was absolute hell getting him to let me leave. You know how it is…I had to sit there for ages with my eyes down, and…"_

"_Enough, enough Manon," Charles stopped her, ruffling her hair affectionately with a calloused hand. A relieved sort of happiness swelled up inside her and released itself in a short, loud sigh that ended in a smile._

"_You're here now, and the music is impatient. Start off, will you?" and he handed her the bow, reaching down into the velvet case at his feet to draw out his beautiful, beautiful violin. After looking it over fondly for a moment, he handed it to her with a smile. _

"_You play it today," he said warmly. "I'll play the old nag, see if I can make her sing."_

_He picked up the old, weathered violin that had been her longtime companion… nothing special, but it was sturdy and faithful._

_Manon held Charles' own instrument to her chin, smelling beeswax and nutmeg and a hundred fond memories. She looked forward to these evening lessons more than anything else (though that wasn't saying much) thanks to Charles. He had created that. Even though she was only twelve, he had been teaching her for years and had fused to her soul and adoration for music and its emotional powers. After hearing him play for the first time, years ago, Manon had found her young face wet with tears and her innocent heart beating fact with the desire to do the same thing… to create in other people that same rapture and to weave that beauty for herself. She ran her thumb over the gleaming rosewood of the neck lovingly. _

"_Let's be daring today. Something cheery?" he prompted her. She began playing, and was shaky on the first few notes, as usual, but Charles guided her frustrated fingers and arms into that same position he urged her to use again and again. She continued, more strongly this time, letting the sound rise from the instrument, him correcting her grip from time to time or pointing out a note that didn't quite fit._

_Once she had found a rhythm, he joined in with his own instrument, adding a laughing melody that wound around and in between her notes, creating a shyly cheerful tune, rich and simple._

_They played and played. Manon's eyes were closed, an absent-minded smile on her face. Music – or any sort of expression, for that matter – was for her an intensely personal experience…but with Charles, it had never mattered. He would never judge, never blame, never laugh – only listen. And understand. And for that, she loved him more than anything else in creation._

_It would have been impossible to articulate exactly what she was doing as she translated her thoughts to music, but Manon understood Charles' intentions exactly. She wove sweet, simple melodies that were delicate and harmonic, the sort that bring an absent sort of smile to the listener's face._

_After what seemed like all too short a time, however, Manon heard the door behind her bang open. _

_She froze, bow in hand, as she smelled that hateful, telltale mixture of earth, old tobacco, and flint._

_Her father._

_Manon turned around slowly, her eyes to the floor, letting the instrument slip quietly into her lap. _

_Her father, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe in a practiced gesture of indifference, authority, and mockery, folded his arms across his chest. He cast his small, pale, calculating eyes about the room, surveying the two of them. His vest was unbuttoned and rumpled, and he had the air of a man who had been recently displeased and could at any moment channel that displeasure in some unexpected and thoroughly unpleasant way._

_Manon knew not to cross him._

_He ran a hand over his ruddy cheeks and short, coarse beard as if too annoyed to care, and his eyes settled finally on Charles._

"_We have work to do," he growled shortly and simply, and with a final, appraising glance at Manon, he left._

_She was spared for the moment._

_Manon turned and looked up at Charles pleadingly, but he avoided her eyes and put the old instrument he was holding back in its leather case. _

"_We'll continue where we left off tomorrow," he said, attempting to smile, and taking his own instrument from her to wrap in its velvet sack._

"_Charles, please -" she began, but he turned suddenly and looked at her – sadly, disappointedly, frustratingly, pityingly – and she fell silent. Then his face eased back into a resigned smile and he took her face in his hands, his palms on either side of her young cheeks. Even his freckles suddenly looked sad. He kissed her on her furrowed brow._

"_A demain, ma belle," he said to her as he walked out the door. He gave her one final smile before shutting it, leaving her alone with her thoughts and he dull thud of the door as it closed behind him. _

Manon's eyes flew open and she jerked violently out of her reverie, sloshing water over the side of the basin. She looked around herself, realizing where and when she was.

_Oh_, she realized mutely. _Lovely._


	5. Dragonflies

I'm back! And I promise that the chapters will come more frequently from now on. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

* * *

Manon slumped morosely back into the water, the suds swirling sluggishly, depressedly. They were sympathizing with her dark mood. Fucking memories. How was it possible to move on from something if she wouldn't let herself forget it? What was even the point? Maybe it was some sick form of baseless guilt and emotional self-punishment.

She had a tricky relationship with sleep…while it offered her an escape from living day-to-day as prey, is also provided her past with a dastardly effective way of catching up to her while her guard was down and pummeling her with unwanted memories.

Sinking even deeper into the water, Manon let her head up to her nose to be submerged, scrunching up her eyes. She reluctantly reflected on the reverie she had just slipped into. Those lessons, those little golden hours of peace she had shared with Charles had been the saving graces of life at home with her father. In a way, she had a feeling that they had been some of Charles' happiest moments too. They were such a stark contrast to the hellish alternative that was life with their father

_Poor Charles_. How cruelly, ironically fitting that she, Manon, was living at the mercy of the mindless policiers even after her father was gone.

Her father. Edward Moreau; policier captain fallen from grace, renegade, and hooligan. Sadistic, cowardly, misogynistic whoreson, perpetually and delusionally self-important…all the trite characteristics that it seemed impossible could ever all manifest themselves in one single person, but there it was. And, lucky Manon, she got to live under its thumb. It was a vilely potent mixture that had left its scars.

Manon laughed out loud, softly but hollowly, when she thought of her mother. Gentle woman though she was, she was incorrigibly and pathetically resigned to her husband's misogynistic ways. And what for? Manon thought angrily. Protection? Funny sort of protection, that. Was being hurt and scorned by one's "protector" preferable to being hurt and scorned by strangers? Manon wasn't so sure.

Her father hadn't been a consciously cruel person. Bizarrely, he had seen himself as a kind of twisted protector. Then again, this "protection" did entail all-too-frequent blows as punishment for some perceived misdemeanor or other. Though Manon was well-acquainted with the weight of her father's hand, he also indulged in a rather more dastardly sort of psychological abuse of his wife and daughter, designed to build himself up in his own eyes at the expense of others.

Did a daughter of Moreau learn to read? God, no. How _pointless_ for a woman. For her own protection, really. Did the daughter of Moreau have lovers? Friends? Laughable! Anything that Edwards Moreau could conceivably perceive as making a fool out of him (which in his eyes was more or less anything he did not personally decide upon) was "dealt with" as he put it. And by God, nobody would _ever_ make a whore out of _Moreau's_ daughter.

They had been _chattel_, Manon thought disgustedly. Not people, just creatures designed to provide a foil to her father's own sick power structure. His little band of rogue policiers had been even worse…

_Stop it. Stop. Right now. _Manon plunged her head underwater, submerging herself in its coldness to force the thoughts out of her head.

Suddenly, she was aware of the fact that was indeed cold. And very wet. Jesus, how long had she been just sitting there, flicking around the now long-gone suds? Hurriedly, she stepped out of the tub and snatched up a midnight-blue dressing down she saw lying on the chair beside her, slipping it over her shoulders - then paused, staring at it.

Hadn't she chosen an amber-colored one before?

After frowning for a moment, she shook it off and tied the sash of her newly-acquired robe, streaming water all over the duty floor so that it flowed in rivulets and carved a sloppy design through the grime.

A fine thing it would have been if she had been so long that the Phantom had come in to check that she hadn't sunk to the bottom, saw her floating there listlessly like an idiot, and simply left. With a smirk, and a withering glance? Manon rose shakily and attempted to dry herself off quickly, hampered somewhat by the wound in her side. She had hardly dared touch it as she'd bathed, for fear that she would somehow split open its dubious seams.

She continued to dutifully ignore it, shrugging off the robe and into the first gown she saw as carefully as she could.

Thus what she didn't notice was the furious scarlet her wound was turning….or its swelling…or its oozing secretions…

What if the Phantom really had left and she had no way of finding her way back? She had no intention of staying in these cold upper chambers while there was warmth to be had down below.

The wound throbbed again.

Manon hesitated, unsure as to how she might summon him. She couldn't very well shout out "Oi! Phantom! Come and collect me!" now could she? She suppressed a laugh, imagining his reaction.

The wound throbbed again.

Looking around a bit awkwardly, Manon took a step into the corridor.

"…Erik?" she said after a moment, using his name for the first time. She was pleasantly startled at how smoothly and easily it slipped off her tongue… a sigh, a hum of a name.

Within a few moments, he was striding towards her without the aid of a lantern – having left it with her, she realized. Again Manon marveled at the affinity and ease with which he maneuvered the mazes of this dark opera house. Questions about him and his past – irrelevant, impertinent, and downright nosy – leapt again to her tongue, but she bit them back. She was surprised at her own curiosity in this Phantom, since she had learned the hard way that becoming too invested in someone could only lead to sorrow.

Manon was, however, finding that as time wore on and their interactions (both verbal and non-verbal, she noted wryly) continued, it felt increasingly natural to think of him quite simply as a man, no ghost…a very tall… broad man…who whether she liked it or not had saved her…who was also an infuriatingly arrogant little berk… whose humorless sneer nonetheless continues to cause a frisson to skip up her spine of threat combined with God-knew what else….

…a man who was standing before her, expectantly, now with an impatient eyebrow raised.

"You rang, my dear?" he pronounced with delicate sarcasm, folding his arms across his broad chest and regarding her with exaggerated frankness.

_Shit_.

Suddenly in a playful mood, she mirrored his sarcasm. "Ah yes, there you are. Go and carry my things, slave," she said airily, waving carelessly towards the chair on which her gowns sat.

Erik's eyebrows rose so high on his forehead that they were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. He opened his mouth for a moment, eyebrows furrowing again as if enraged, but after a second of his mouth just hanging open (rather like an idiot, Manon thought) his brow cleared and he let out what she dared to say was a breathy _chuckle_ and just shook his head with a bit of a smirk.

"Why _certainly,_ mademoiselle," he said dutifully with a rather dashing bow.

­­

* * *

_Lord, she smells good._

This was the first coherent thought that sprang abruptly into his mind the moment Erik stepped in front of Manon. He couldn't help but slow his walk down so that he could take in this new, clean version of her. He'd never seen her without some remnant of dried blood or mud or whatnot, he realized.

Now, however, was another story entirely. Her long hair, retracting into coiling waves as it dried, was giving off some heady scent – almond, and some other kind of spice his foggy brain was having some difficulty placing. Most strange.

Her skin, still damp from the bath, had a satiny sheen, too. Yes, cleanliness certainly did suit this demoiselle. He liked this clean version of Manon. He liked her very much. As did he the cut of her simple white gown…. it hugged her muddle and flowed about her ankles gracefully, like a scarf caught in a breeze…

Manon cleared her throat expectantly and, still with that playfully supercilious air, gave him a stern, pointed look at her gowns.

Oh, who was she kidding? Manon smiled faintly, the pretense cracking. She shook her head to herself, smiling and chiding herself for this juvenile display, and went to get them herself.

"No, no, mademoiselle, allow me" said Erik, striding around her and scooping them into his arms. He still didn't trust himself completely to string together more than a few words coherently, befuddled as his brain was.

Manon smirked gently.

"Ah. Well, excellent.. Glad you've finally learned your place."

"Evidently."

"Do you wait hand and foot on all your lady friends like this?"

"Only the overly-defensive, tempestuous ones, I'm afraid."

"Ah. I see." She said sagely. "You'll have to let me know when she arrives."

There was a pause, barely a fraction of a second.

With a movement so quick she barely caught it, Erik swooped up to her, towering a few inches above her head . He was right in front of her, his mood completely changed. He leaned down, his face so close to hers now…

"Will there be anything else…my lady?" he murmured at her temple, his head bowed.

Manon suddenly felt like she was 14 years old again. Completely off-guard, completely inexperienced, and completely unsure of what to do.

"I...um...no.." she mumbled, avoiding his very close eyes. She lowered her head slightly. God, there was that chest again…

But before her thoughts could run too shamefully far, Erik brought them there himself. Manon felt his hand coolly grasp hers and raise it to his lips. She stopped breathing. He looked at it as if examining some rare gem – his face expressionless –caressing the top of her hand gently, before lowering his eyelashes and kissing it slowly, gently.

With no further pleasantries he swept back again, leaving her gobsmacked, and strode to the door, holding it open for her politely.

She waltzed through it smiling as if the exchange before hadn't phased her one bit. It had, in fact, taken all of her willpower not to melt into a puddle and slither down the drain like melted butter, but she wasn't about to let him know that. Especially when he looked as coolly urbane as ever.

In truth, a part of her was responding to being cared for. Though it grated against her independent, self-sufficient instincts, the taste of it she received from Erik's attentions intrigued, enlivened, and bewildered her. She'd almost forgotten. But as ever, her reflexes drove her to attempt to carry her own weight (or in this case, gowns) only this time, her instincts worked against her. She tried to pull the clothing from Erik's arms to hold herself,

"Alright, I'm perfectly capable of…"

He held then out of her arm's reach, his expression turning to one of waning patience.

She threw her weight forward, swinging her arm up foolishly in attempts to get them back, but a sharp and waspish pain in her side caused her to recoil.

But then he snapped at her, almost irritably, much to Erik's own surprise,

"Manon, no one is suggesting that you _aren't _capable. But for the time being, I would suggest that you focus your efforts on the burdensome task of walking before anything else, mmm?"

He regretted his curt afterthought almost immediately. What had brought _that _on? With that one short phrase, he had effectively managed to spoil the relaxed and almost playful atmosphere which had begun to settle between them.

"I only meant…" but Manon was already storming down the corridor – well, as best she could, at any rate. Her wound was making it increasingly difficult to move properly, though she wasn't about to tell _him_ that.

Erik watched her stalk away, rolling his eyes. _Women,_ he thought exasperatedly. Why was she so damned proud all the time? She'd been bloody _shot_, for God's sake, and had had the bullet extracted with no laudanum to dull the pain. It was enough to make anyone demand service hand and foot. Couldn't she see that was slightly entitled? But Erik was getting the distinct impression that Manon Moreau was not a woman who was use to being coddled, let alone cared for.

Far away from his mind at the present, in a spot he'd almost forgotten existed, Erik felt the tiniest twinge of that instinctive protectiveness he'd once felt so often – no stronger that the weight of a dragonfly flitting from leaf to leaf, but just strong enough for him to notice, to be alarmed at, and to suddenly be clouded with moody and contemplative and just slightly confused thoughts.

He followed her out, face set, guided by the light of the lantern she stubbornly held despite his protests. They walked in mulish silence for a while. Erik, undeterred by what he saw as her foolish pride, broke the quiet by asking her how her wound had held up in the bath.

"Just fine, thank you," was her cold response.

Erik was beginning to get annoyed by her hostile attitude. He was trying to be a gentleman, for Christ's sake! He was bloody carrying her gowns! Her anger was no doubt geared mostly at herself for not being fit enough to do everyday tasks, but why did _he_ have to bear the brunt of her aggression?

Erik was reminded sharply of just a few short years ago when other people's wariness of him had not irked him so. They had used him as a scapegoat for eerie goings-on at the Opera for ages (though, admittedly, he had indeed been behind most of them, and had gotten one hell of a kick out of the pranks) so why was he jumping hurdles for Manon now? And even more disturbingly, why was her being upset with him making him so uncomfortable when it was so unjustified?

Yes, that was it! Because it was unjustified. Right, yes, that had to be what was making him angry. Because it was unjustified. Obviously. Unjustified. Right.

This, at least, was the mantra he repeated to himself as they continued silently down the dim corridor.


	6. Elizabethan Serenade

Hello, lovely readers! Here is our next installment, and I'm well into the next one. Onward and Upward!

* * *

_"If ever you're afriad of the dark..._

_...remember the midnight rainbow."_

* * *

How could silence be so oppressive? It was only silence, after all. Nothingness, by definition. But, oh, the somethingness which skulked in and stayed and stayed between Erik and Manon until Erik, after what in truth had only been a few moments, attempted to intervene and lift the atmosphere somewhat. True, he had been bred into sparring, but he saw no reason for hostility where none need be. He stepped aside for Manon to pass through first as he gently pressed the mechanism, causing the mirror to slide open.

She stalked past him without so much as a glance in his direction.

"Forgive and forget", it appeared, were not on the agenda.

"You know," Erik, said, exasperatedly breaking the silence and falling into step beside her, "You might have an easier time of it if you resist the urge to mope every other moment."

He knew they were harsh words. Still, he was not a patient man. Erik's attitude towards Manon's continuing presence in his home was growing more and more damnably nuanced, and her resisting compliance to him was wearing him thin. She walked on silently without looking at him.

He felt like shaking a response out of her, but settled on walking slightly ahead of her and pretending that he didn't care about her worsening limp. Serve her right. He was, if nothing, a being who lived and breathed control. Agency. Influence over his domain. As a youth, he had controlled nothing, powerless to change that one small yet insurmountable barrier between him and the rest of humanity. The instinct to control whatever he could was reflexive at this point.

He was also a man of rather remarkable genius – any inability to understand one thing or another felt like a personal offence, and he found this rare occurrence extraordinarily unsettling.

This was one of those occurrences.

This woman's continual wrong-footing of him, while maddening and intriguing, was all the more unacceptable for it. He had once controlled every damn going-on in this opera house. Everything! From the decisions of those _buffoon_ managers right down to the privileges of the lowliest, filthiest stagehand. Everything under his sharp, watchful eye ran as he saw fit.

Everything, that is, except for the one thing that had mattered most …

Unsurprisingly, his mood worsened.

Unsurprisingly, he took it out on the nearest bystander.

Manon.

Slowing her walk and distinctly holding her side, she turned and furrowed her brow and opened her mouth as if to retort, but Erik was suddenly on the offensive, completely forgetting his peacemaking intentions only moments ago. Possessed by demons of the past, he plowed on relentlessly –

"I suppose that you feel like you're proving something by refusing assistance. Hmph. Ironic, isn't it? You think that carrying around gowns will somehow negate the fact that you, my dear, are staying in the home and under the protection of someone else? Facts are facts, Moreau," he said with a cold recklessness.

Her eyes widened, but Manon didn't miss a beat.

"Oh, well I suppose that's all very well for you to say, _Monsieur le Phantôme_, holed up down here in you little _cave_. I, on the other hand, have been on the bloody run without so much as someone to lend me their UMBRELLA let alone carry goddamn gowns –"

"Or extract goddamn bullets or murder goddamn gendarmes!" Erik cut in mercilessly.

" – so you'll have to _excuse_ me if I seem a tad _disused_ to such apparently agenda-less assistance!" she bit out, incensed.

They were yelling now (the clothing lay forgotten on the rock floor). They were deep in the tunnels at this point, and the only light came from the lantern which Manon was brandishing angrily, casting violently slanted shadows all over the rough interior. Erik's form was intimidatingly illuminated looming above her, rigid, causing her to instinctively raise her hackles and prepare for the defensive.

"Agenda?!" Erik laughed meanly, slamming his hand beside her head on the wall. "Don't flatter yourself. I lacked human company and you now provide it. You are in my domain now, my dear. I suggest you get used to living on someone else's terms." He scoffed, eyeing her coldly and removing his hand. She breathed a little deeper. "Look at you. You can barely walk."

Manon stopped dead and gaped at him. He could not cut her wings like this. She was incensed. She was alarmed and angry and anxious. Where had _this_ come from? She could hardly believe her ears. And there she had been, almost thinking that he was someone who was, in a bizarre, unfathomable way, _similar_ to her, someone who could, maybe not sympathize with, but at least empathize with her!

She poked him in the chest, hard, advancing upon him, "I _told_ you that I would happily waltz right out of here if it's such a _burden_ on you. Do me no favors, you self-righteous ass."

As she shook her head in disgust, and Erik felt the tiniest twinge of guilt. But she was not done –

"It's not as if I _wanted _this! What, you think being hunted is enjoyable? You think it's jolly? Let alone being a friendless, resourceless woman, ohh no, God forbid having to…and never…and then YOU…" she trailed off and ran her hands wildly through her hair, apparently incensed beyond words.

Erik gave her no quarter.

"Oh ho, so now we're the expert on having it rough, is that it? Let me guess, you don't like the foppish suitor your parents picked out for you, you ran away, and got in some spot of trouble or other." He bit his words out caustically. "How terribly _dreadful_ for you. That's hardly –"

But his harsh diatribe was sharply cut off by Manon backhanding him across his maskless cheek, whipping his head to the side and leading him thunderstruck and murderous. Before he could pin her up against the wall by her pale throat, however, she swooped in, hissing venomously,

"_How. Dare. You._ How _dare_ you!! To assume that you have a monopoly on suffering!" she flung the lantern against the wall, shattering it and spattering them both with hot oil.

She barreled on heedless, with a mirthless shriek of laughter –

"Ha! You can take your sanctimonious, idiotic drivel and march straight into hell with it for all I care. I'll find my own goddamned way out and spare your delicate sensibilities from my shallow female whimsy, you mother-loving sod. A _thousand_ apologies," She hissed, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

With that, she shoved past him and limped determinately back in the general direction from which they had come. She was so angry, she couldn't have been certain…plus, in her haste to leave him she had left the dying lantern sputtering on the cold, wet floor.

Erik found his voice again:

"Do not try to fool yourself – you have no idea how to get back and will no doubt lose yourself in the catacombs…" but she marched on, still furious, and certainly not about to take any of his advice at this particular juncture, tossing her hand in dismissive insolence over her shoulder.

Fine. Let her. He leaned against the wall, drained, noting the direction she had gone. It wasn't all that off-mark, he noted with surprise. Pity. She could steam all she wanted, for all he cared. He'd probably find her, spirit broken (but not for a few hours, he warranted) huddled in some corner once she realized how futile this ridiculous gesture of defiance was. He watched coldly as the hazy white outline of her figure bobbed further and further away, with the occasional flurry of colorful language thrown back in his direction every now and again.

Erik turned, fuming at her, disgusted with himself, and seething with tension as he stalked down the passages back to his lair.

Let her sulk. She would break. He'd come back to find her and she would submit. It was just a matter of hours…

Or so he thought.

* * *

Several hundred paces into the tunnels, Manon had run out of curse words.

She had also come to the nasty realization that she did not, in fact, have the faintest idea where she was going.

_Damn him, _she thought for the hundredth time. Damn him and his stupid, smirking, handsome face. Damn his arrogance. Damn his stupid cave. Damn….

Damn the fact that he'd been right every time.

Damn the fact that she couldn't just accept the fact that she _needed_ him.

Manon tripped over her feet as she thought these words.

She needed him?

Well…as reluctant as she was to admit it…yes. She did. She had needed him when he had hidden her from the gendarmes. When he had fed her, ungrateful wretch that she was. When he had tended to her wound.

She was walking quickly again, though her wound was beginning to feel like a twisting knife in her side. She ignored it, but it worsened - her anger at herself now pushed her forward. Tentatively, she touched her wound but gasped sharply as her fingertips made contact.

It was as if her side were on fire.

_Stupid, stupid Manon_ she berated herself. Why couldn't she just admit that she was grateful to him? Was she so incapable of courtesy? Was this what she had been reduced to? A woman no longer capable of accepting kindness without lashing out at the hapless Samaritan? It was for no foolish reasons that it was instinct now to behave this way, true….but then, why did he have to be so _bellicose_?

These thoughts plagued her as she stumbled deeper and deeper. Her head was beginning to spin. Her wound was continuing to scream. But farther and farther she stumbled, desperate for a way out.

Self-righteous ass. He thought he knew everything, didn't he? Tend to her wound, sure. Make her tea, fine. But she wasn't about to settle in cozily at the expense of being so damn _trivialized_. She had been through too much for that.

Manon's hands groped blindly for the walls. Bravado aside, this darkness was pretty bloody dark, and she couldn't see a thing. Like Theseus and his minotaur, though, she knew that keeping her hand on the wall would eventually lead her back to Erik's cavern, even if she had to retrace her steps. Seeing the gobsmacked look on his face would be gratifying enough to be worth it.

But the walls were now growing slimy. Shrugging off a shudder, Manon soldiered on, pretending she didn't notice.

She'd been walking a fair while now…how far did these tunnels go, anyway? Manon cursed her lamentable sense of direction, though usually the repercussions weren't quite so morbid. She never had been any good at finding her way around. Charles always used to tease her about that…

She swallowed hard. _This is no time to reminisce. Just focus on finding your way out of here, hmm?_ Her psyche taunted her. She wished she could slap it. Instead, she tripped over what felt like a small rock, then heard something skitter away in fright.

_Jesus! Rats too?!_ Manon swung her foot out angrily, trying to kick its rabies-infested arse into oblivion. She missed, obviously, but did immediately feel a nauseating protest from her wound. She slumped against the wall, completely winded. She closed her eyes and unfurrowed her brow, a practiced reaction to situations in which an average woman might resort to tears.

Hands trembling, she gingerly touched her side and was horrified to feel that it was wet and sticky.

Dear God, was it bleeding again? Had it split its seams? She could feel that the flesh was swollen around Erik's careful stitches. A whole host of unpleasant thoughts assaulted her brain and she hauled herself up to stagger forward – a foolish decision, for her mind was beginning to fog.

What was she going to do now? Spontaneously become a surgeon?

"_No, I am not a surgeon, but I am capable"_

Erik's voice floated through her head, mocking her.

She staggered forward.

How could she go back? After having behaved as she had? After _him_ having behaved as he had? It occurred to her that giving him a good solid punch right in his handsome face – again – might be exactly what she needed to do to get this strange fire in her side and this strange fog in her head to lift. Just what the doctor ordered. Doctor Manon! Ha!

She took a few more swaying steps, the fire in her body rising.

That was strange. When had she wandered into a swamp? She would have sworn she'd been walking through a cave. Or had it been a castle? Funny sort of trade-off, this swamp. She wasn't sure she liked it.

Her feet began to slip on the rocks beneath her feet, fluttery and confused.

Where was Charles, anyway? He had promised to meet her here at the blacksmith's so that they could walk to the opera together.

"Charles?!...CHARLES!" She shrieked, her cries echoing strangely back to her.

_Fire._

Where was Charles?

Whirling, she opened her mouth to cry out for him again – she was only 12, now, after all – but her foot caught on a hooked stone covered I slime and shot out from under her.

She caught herself on the wall – barely. The adrenaline coursed through her, temporarily eclipsing her rising fever and leaving her panting as she fought to stay above it. What had she expected? Those strong arms, that sturdy chest, that welcome smirk to hold her up again?

She swayed again, flailing her foot out to catch her own fall, but was met only with a wet and uneven and entirely unfriendly floor.

Nobody's arms reached out to her as she fell slowly, her face in a belligerent and helpless frown, her dark eyes swallowed up by the nothingness surrounding her…

"ERIK!!"

_Blackness._

* * *

_Thoughts? Please share them! More reviews mean more chapters :)_


	7. Unwelcome, Then Less Welcome

Next chapter is en route, as usual - up within the month, if things continue to go well. Happy travels, ye faithful, intrepid readers!

* * *

Erik was pacing the floor of his bedroom, not really knowing why. It wasn't as if he were _worried_. Him? The Opera Ghost?

Ha! Laughable.

Erik did not laugh, however, when he thought of the uncomfortable number of dangers the tunnels held for a wounded, angry young female, wandering around defiantly with murder in her eyes. He knew the experience well enough. Attention to one's surroundings was hardly at the top of the agenda...He knew that her focus would be driven inward – cursing him.

Casting an uneasy glance over his shoulder towards the lake, Erik stuffed his hands into his pockets. There were an awful lot of rats running around in some of the deeper tunnels. Big ones. The kind that hadn't eaten in a while. What if she wandered into the catacombs? Was attacked by them? Tripped over an uneven piece of rock, or fell into….

_Damn it_. In retrospect, the pits in the catacombs and the dead ends he had built had probably been overkill. But how was he supposed to predict that there would be a headstrong woman waltzing about the opera's vaults? A woman with no clue where she was going? A woman whom he had all-but appointed himself responsible for?

A woman whose fate he cared about?

Erik stopped pacing as this thought occurred to him.

A woman whose fate he cared about?

Well, he supposed, yes. He did.

He gazed at the imprint left by Manon's exhausted body in his bed the night before. God in Heaven, he hadn't expected that. Alright, so the context of having Manon "in his bed" didn't hold precisely the connotations which he might, begrudgingly, on some level, possibly _like_ them to hold, but it did present him with decidedly unsettling circumstances.

The last – and only- woman who had sleepy thusly in his bed had been… Christine…

A woman whose fate he cared about?

Erik sat down heavily on the bench in front of his organ, running his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture for what felt like the hundredth time.

He tried so hard to never think of her name, though her face crossed his mind a thousand times a day.

He tried so hard to ignore the echoes of her voice, though she sang him to sleep every night.

_Christine, Christine, Christine…_

Would it never end?

His longing for her persisted, try as he might to crush it. It was a dull ache in his heart, like a wound that had never quite healed because the bullet was still inside it.

Yet he was no fool. He didn't delude himself for a moment that she would return. Without her angel in her ear, he was simply a puzzling memory. It sickened him to think that the only prospect for her return was to again become the angel singing inside her head, manipulating her, seducing her, never wooing her with honesty.

_Christine, Christine, Christine…_

The fop had won. The fop always won. The two children together, how fitting. How perfectly..

Groaning softly with frustration, Erik leaned back against the wall.

He vacillated between loving and hating Christine…loving her for her innocence, her soul, her beauty…hating her for her childishness, her vanity, her perfection. Two sides of the same coin.

That, he supposed, was the nature of obsession. It was nihilism. It was bipolarity and stark dichotomy. It was madness. It was perverse and it was twisted… yet it was so sweet, inescapable, blissful to lapse into the dangerous ease of letting himself go wherever the river of mania swept him….

Erik toyed idly with his cuff as he gazed unseeingly into space. No wonder he was so incapable of letting much of anything else occupy his time or thoughts…he had learned nothing of middle ground. Somewhere between seeing Christine for the first time and hearing her sing for the first time, he had finally felt alive – and _human_ – yet somewhere between becoming her teacher and trussing the fop to the portcullis, he had lost all faculties for reason, his rationale, his mind.

And now he was paying for it with a lifetime of solitude.

_Christine, Christine, Christine…_

_Manon. Manon. Manon._ His subconscious mocked him.

Well, _she _had certainly introduced a new element of complexity to his empty shell of a life…

_Stubborn as sin, though,_ Erik thought tiredly, standing up and pacing to his room again. Manon was practically a full-time job.

Yet he also wasn't fool enough to kid himself about his attitude towards her being with him. To put it lightly, he was not a man who made friends easily. True, Manon wasn't exactly his friend _per se_, but for two moody, troubled individuals they tolerated one another awfully well. What was more, despite her mercuriality, he felt a fierce little stab of pleasure in having both saved and worked to cure her.

Erik absently rubbed his unmasked cheek where she had struck him earlier. It hadn't exactly been enough to break his jaw, but he could distinctly feel a bruise forming under the tender flesh.

Cheeky thing, wasn't she. She'd hit him squarely, too, convincing him that this was not the first time she had ever hit someone before. He chuckled hollowly. Well, her flare of temper had certainly confirmed his suspicions that she had committed more than steal a load of bread. Did she really think him that simple? He realized that his jibe at her own personal fop, (part personal cynicism and partly testing the waters) had wounded her less than his actual mockery had.

He winced slightly as his traveling fingers touches his cheekbone, which felt like it had absorbed most of the blow.

Why had she reacted so strongly? What had it been, if not some man? Erik shifted uncomfortably, pondering this. What about his mocking of her had caused her to lash our like that? What unwelcome memory had be unearthed? Trivial hurts did not drive well-bred women to attempt – and succeed – to strike a man.

But then, what kind of well-bred woman couldn't read, for Christ's sake? But no, he was certain that she was no street urchin; she had an innate grace and eloquence which leaned strongly towards sophistication. So why the discrepancy?

Erik smacked the wall with his palm. His hands returned to running through his hair. Why did he _care_ so damn much?

He shouldn't. He knew that he shouldn't.

He didn't. He _knew_ that he didn't. Anyway, why was he even bothering to qualify just how much he wasn't invested in her? Why was he wasting his thoughts telling himself what his feelings towards her were? What did it even matter?

Erik's roving fingers touched his cold, hard mask. Suddenly furious, he stood and stormed towards the gilded mirror. He ripped the mask off of his face to reexamine his own grotesqueness.

"There! See? Had you forgotten?!" he berated himself, standing practically flush to the glass, forcing his face upon himself. His unkind fingers prodded roughly at the uneven flesh and bone.

"And what would she say to _this_, eh, you fool?" Erik demanded of his reflection. His eyes turned unseeing, so weary of the deformity before him that he could hardly breathe. "You know exactly what she would say. Nothing, that's what, because she would have either fled or passed out cold."

He stared at himself for a moment, his eyes and his heart empty.

After a moment, Erik shook his head with a groan and leaned heavily against the mirror, bracing himself with his forearms and resting his forehead against his balled fists. What was he trying to prove to himself, anyway? That he hadn't grown to care for Manon in some small way? For her wit, her cynicism that matched his own, her endearingly maddening stubbornness?

…Or was he trying to prove something deeper and far more insidious? That he was beyond such caring, for anyone? That the caring he had once doled out with unstinting generosity had been broken beyond repair?

That it had now become a self-fulfilling prophecy of his own making?

That it would happen again?

Erik's wall clock chimed suddenly, snapping him out of his downward spiral of a trance – once, twice, three times…. Erik lost count. Suddenly he was fully alert. How long ago had it been since he had left Manon in the tunnels? One hour? Two? More?

The sinister beginnings of worry began to gnaw at the edges of his brain .

"Damn your pride, Erik, _damn_ your pride…" he muttered.

He would find her. He would go back into the tunnels and look for her exhausted, belligerent form and bring her back here where she would be safe. How could he have been so irresponsible? Muddled feelings aside, he had let blind rage drive her – injured, unknowing and angry – to the idiotic quest of finding her way – where? Out? Into a pit? He knew perfectly well that there was no way to the surface without a boat.

_Bloody brilliant, did it also occur to you that she has nowhere else to go besides the gallows?_ Every bit of healing he and she had worked for might be frittered away by some fireworking tempers.

Erik's eyes snapped open. Making up his mind in an instant, he pressed swiftly away from the mirror – only to stop dead.

Something white was floating in his lake.

Erik watched it for a moment in the mirror's reflection, horrified and transfixed.

It drifted towards him slowly, grotesquely, a pale and ghostly petal in a murky lake of green and black…

There, facedown in the water, was Manon.


	8. Mutiny of the body

I told you it wasn't over yet! I've committed myself to finishing this story before the new year, so I promise you'll be seeing more of Manon more frequently. Thank you for your patience and your support - I do this for you guys.

Enjoy!

* * *

_"If a human soul should dream of me, ah, that me may still remember me upon awakening!"_

* * *

Erik wanted to vomit. He leapt into the grotto, stumbling frantically, with a strange, dreamlike deafness in his ears. He threw aside chairs, books, anything in his path as he moved desperately towards Manon's lifeless form. Totally oblivious to his boat, he stripped his shoes and shirt off as he dove into the lake and swam towards her.

Grabbing her pale arm, he dragged it across his shoulders as he swam crookedly, heavily back to shore. She did not feel warm. She did not feel alive.

Erik found himself praying suddenly to a God who didn't exist.

_Please, please be alive. I can't have lost her…oh God, Manon, please…_

His feet hit bottom as he reached the edge of the lake and hoisted her dripping body into his arms. She was ice cold, her face bloodless, waxen. All Erik looked at as he stumbled towards his room was her pale features. A few freckles he'd never noticed before stood out against their pallid background.

"Manon! Manon, Manon, come on…" he pleaded absently with her as he laid her gently out on the bed.

Her sopping dark hair streamed onto the pillow as he pushed a few strands off her face. His own body soaked the bed even more, but he didn't care. He checked her vital signs, fingers pressing to her wrists and, finding nothing, leapt frantically to her neck where he was unspeakably relieved to find a pulse – but a faint one.

How in God's name had she wound up in the water? How much had she swallowed? Leaning down quickly, he breathed gently into her mouth, utterly ignoring the irony of their "kiss" in face of the distressing cold of her lips.

His palms found her sternum and they pressed down – hard.

_Breathe. Breathe. _Suddenly she spasmed, coughing up a stream of lakewater onto his bed. Yet the worst, it appeared, was far from over. Manon was still unconscious and though she was now breathing faintly, she was deathly, deathly cold.

Without hesitation, she was hefted into Erik's arms and he briskly rubbed her back, her shoulders, her arms with his hands.

How could he let this happen? Erik was beyond caring that he was allowing himself to become far more distressed over an impending death than he ever had. Yet as he pressed her head into the crook of his neck, he paused for a moment in his frantic attempts to warm some blood back into her skin…. and he just held her for a moment – tightly, briefly, irrelevantly, irresponsibly…

A cold trickle of water suddenly streamed down unwelcomingly close to his groin and snapped him back to his senses as he realized that the only way that Manon's frigid body was going to gain any heat was if he gave it some of his own. Again, almost laughing at the intense irony of the situation – the unrealistic intimacy of such a situation for he, Erik, to find himself in! – he guided her body down onto the bed. As he did so, though, he paused and frowned.

He concluded reluctantly that her sopping dress was not helping matters.

After passing an uneasy glance over Manon's face, Erik moved his hands to her bodice and gently began flicking open the buttons, one at a time, and slid the garment over her shoulders, past her arms, down the slope of her waist and hips and legs until he could toss it onto the floor.

Studiously keeping his eyes on the most innocent parts of her body he could manage, Erik swallowed the rather large lump that had formed in his throat as he did this.

_Idiot. She's about to die, quit your voyeurism and warm her up already._

Gathering Manon's body to him, Erik aligned their bodies so that he was touching every part of her that he could, letting out a faint gasp at both the chill of her skin, and, guiltily, at the sensation of her bare skin meeting his bare chest.

An extremely tense minute passed with Erik lying rigid, his throat tight and his eyes shut tighter.

A second passed, and then another.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

His gaze found Manon's left shoulder.

It was pale and smooth, intersected by the wide strap of her wet shift, plastered to her skin.

His left arm was pressed to the bed, wrapped around her right side… his inquisitive right arm, however, lifted from her waist and touched the top of this shoulder – as lightly as if he were brushing off a piece of dust – and caressed it gently.

He watched his hand move, fascinated, as if it were no longer a part of him and were moving on its own.

Her skin felt cold even to his touch, but it was soft as he trailed his fingers over it. Hm. Nothing burst into flames, no one leapt out to condemn him. His hand became bolder. It trailed slowly down her arm, his half-open eyes guiltily following the movement of his fingers. They paused over a thin, raised scar that striped over her inner forearm like a silvery blade of grass. His fingers lingered there a moment, siding over it a few times before continuing to her thin wrist, the back of her hand (which bore more faint scars, he noticed with a pause and a frown) and down her long fingers.

He had reached her hip… and after resting there for an instant, his fingers seemed to come to their senses and returned to him as he brought his arm quickly back up and wrapped it decisively around Manon's frigid body once more, settling back in. Erik blinked several times to clear his head, glancing at his hand accusingly as it now rested innocently in the middle of Manon's back.

Stupid hand. What did it think it was doing, anyway? Sneaking caressed which clearly held no medicinal value? Erik was busy with mentally berating it when suddenly his leg committed mutiny as well. The damned thing, it had slunk its way closer to Manon and nestled itself between her own legs, so that now they were twined together like crossed fingers.

His leg looked quite cozy snuggled up with Manon's like that. Erik cast it a dirty look.

_What?_ It seemed to ask him innocently.

_You know damned well what_, he grumped back to it.

_Oh, tosh, you prudish old hack,_ it loftily rejoinded. _I'm not going to sit here and let the poor girl freeze. If you were worth half you salt as a physician, you'd have an inkling of how effective this will be in warming her up. Ass._

Erik turned his head away and harrumphed to himself, completely nonplussed. Had he just allow himself to be bested by his own _leg?_ He knew perfectly well how well doing this would warm her up. Him, too. And that was the last thing he wanted to dwell on at this point.

Before any other parts of him mutinied (he could sense his left arm intrigued by the prospect) Erik took a different tact and one-upped them. He gathered Manon a bit more closely, as if to prove to his pioneering body exactly who was boss around here.

Erik took a deep breath and exhaled it, slowly and completely….and just for one moment, he listened to his damnable body's instincts and allowed himself to imagine… that his arms weren't just wrapped around Manon purely for the sake of her survival...

The candles in the room had half burned out…the light dim, their bodies warming, and the gradual lulling of the buzz of panic in his mind lured Erik to a stolen sort of place... a place without lifetimes of anger hardening hearts and where defensiveness wasn't a natural part of existence…a leap between the ticks of a clock, which allowed him a moment of secret, of invisible, of perfect freedom where no one was watching and he let himself forget himself. He let himself forget the fact that he hadn't checked her wound yet, that spending God-knew how long in the cold lake wouldn't lead to other complications in her healing process, that the all-too-frequent furrow between Manon's brow was smoothed….

Instead, he imagined them in a different context, in a different world, their bodies aligned in a different way entirely…he imagined them wrapped in each others arms warm, sated…..as lovers.


	9. Back in the Saddle

"He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time."

-Oscar Wilde

* * *

A drop of sweat was forming at the base of Erik's hairline, lazily oozing its way down his forehead in a languid, nonsensical trail. It rolled over its smaller companions, consuming them, gaining momentum as it finally reached the peak of his right eyebrow. His brow furrowed briefly, irritated with the momentary disruption of its faintly-lined surface. The drop paused, contemplating its next move, before squeezing out in a direct beeline for the inner corner of Erik's closed eye.

Eyes still closed, Erik flinched in annoyance as the salt stung, and reached up unhurriedly to flick the offending drop away. He paused for a moment to look at the drop dangling off the bottom of his finger, swaying precariously for a moment before it gave up and fell with a tiny burst onto his waist.

He stared at it. Then he stared at his hand, the gears of his brain momentarily unable to function.

Since when did he wake up _sweating_? Come to that, when was it ever hot? Even when it was at the height of the sticky Parisian summer, his home was just a deep and coolly removed from the grime and stench of the muggy city streets as ever. Sweating?

Blinking, Erik turned his head slightly and briefly registered Manon's slight form next to him before the recollection of a frozen Manon floating in his lake materialized in his mind's eye. He was momentarily satisfied, having remembered how he had gotten into this rather unusual sleeping arrangement. But that still didn't explain the heat.

He moved gingerly so as not to wake her, though his mind was humming with a nervousness at having slept, unaware, for so long. Erik extracted himself from her damp body and leaned on his elbow.

Immediately, he felt cooler. It didn't take long for him to come to the briefly relieved, then instantly horrified realization that the head was emanating entirely from her.

Suddenly it was difficult for Erik to breathe as his hands flew to Manon's side and tore open her shift, exposing the wound which, as he knew it would be, was streaked red, swollen and foul.

His eyes flew back to her face, where his fears were confirmed. Manon's lips were moving faintly, mouthing slightly, her eyebrows furrowed and her pale face glistening with the sweat that clung to tendrils of hair and plastered them to her face and neck.

_Fuck me, it's infected.  
_

Erik vaulted off the bed and hurtled towards his lake, snatching a basin from the dresser on his way, and rushed to fill it with cold water. He was beside her again in an instant, soaking a cloth in the water and pressing it to her face, her neck, her shoulders. Manon responded immediately, letting out a strangled noise as her lips parted and exhaled sharply, her eyelids fluttering weakly.

"Manon!"

Erik's voice was sharp, panicky, but he didn't care. The irrational relief at seeing that she was alive and responsive combined with his even more unnerving anxiety that she was far worse had him shrugging off his defensive self-possession like a shabby old coat.

Manon's eyelids fluttered again, a clear effort. She tried to raise her head, pathetically, but Erik pressed her gently back down, and suddenly found himself murmuring softly at her.

"Er…Erik?" she asked in a daze, casting her eyes desperately around before slumping back again, withdrawing, muttering nonsensically, breathing heavily.

Erik dipped the cloth again and again in a frantic attempt to cool her. Despite his efforts, her feverish muttering grew louder.

"Er….Charles…Charles wait…."

Erik pushed the hair off her face, agitation rising, passionately wishing that he could sweep away her mutterings as easily. Manon's voice rose.

"Charles…Moreau! Moreau, you _bastard_…STOP…tell them…please, Moreau!"

Manon let out a shriek, followed by a flood of broken and incoherent rambling. Erik had had enough. The buzz of alarm in his mind had reached a breaking point. He needed to shut Manon's half-open eyes, to smother whatever was going on in her mind, to find this Moreau character and gut him like a fish for whatever she was shouting about.

But he couldn't move. Erik cast an agonized look down to her wound, then back up to her fever-flushed face, momentarily at a loss for which to try and mend first. He had never felt so completely incapable of action.

Suddenly she jarred him from his gridlock of alarm. Her breathing quickened and her hand flew to his wrist, grasping it with surprising strength as she wrenched her eyes open, panting. They were glassy and unfocused, but after a moment registered his face – the mask, Erik realized – and were clouded with what looked like momentary _relief_ as her grip loosened slightly.

"_Erik,"_ she gasped, "Oh, God, Erik….._fix it_…"

"Manon."

He tried to keep his voice as controlled as possible. He cleared his throat as his voice cracked slightly.

"Manon!"

His voice was clearer now, authoritative, his fear dispersing to spawn a hard pragmatism.

He gripped the sides of her face, keeping it still, holding her eyes forcefully to keep her from slipping away again.

"Manon, your wound is infected. It is filled with pus and I am going to open, drain and mend it. Do you understand?"

Her response was a shuddery laugh that managed to be feeble and cynical at the same time. How very like her.

Taking her laugh as a yes, Erik stood and left the room, returning immediately with a small, oily-looking brown bottle. He tipped several drops of its contents into a glass of water at the bedside and held it, firmly but gently, up to Manon's mouth.

"Drink."

Fading in an out of her delirium, Manon managed a few difficult sips before spluttering and trying to push the glass away, turning her head aside belligerently. Still offering her no explanation, Erik gripped the back of her head and steered it back towards him, tilting her head back to encourage the last few tinted drops to slide down her throat. He could not help but to let his thumb graze her ear, caressing it softly for the briefest second.

He hated to drug her like this. After her strength during the actual bullet extraction, Erik had no doubts as to whether or not she could actually handle the pain. Drugging her without her consent felt likewise off the mark. Instead, he knew that the laudanum he gave to Manon was out of the plain desire to both numb her mind and to save himself from dwelling on her delirious babble. Erik's instincts stampeded over his discomfiture as he made the decision for her, tilting the glass once more into her mouth until she drained it.

This done, Erik stood to once again retrieve his surgery tools, leaning Manon back down onto the pillows. She was becoming calmer, her mumbling hushed and her unconscious movements deadening as the drug slid through her veins and she fell behind a dense veil of sedation.

He glanced at her, washing his hands in the basin, as her breathing, through still labored, grew more even. How was it possible that he had been so clumsy? That his knowledge, his severity, his composure could have all lapsed at once and allowed this infection to happen? The medical facts were plain and concrete, and he knew them all so well, yet still...

Incredulous that his judgment had been so remiss the night before, and perturbed by the ease with which he had slid into his torpid imaginings with her in his arms while her wound had been busy raging, Erik picked up his tools, took a breath, and returned once again to Manon's bedside.

A surgeon once more.

* * *

_[Author's Note: Better late than never, my friends! More to follow.]_


	10. The Timidity of Laudanum

"Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing. "

* * *

As he re-opened and cleaned Manon's wound, clearing up the blood and pus as he went, re-stitching where necessary, Erik kept stealing worried glances at her face. She was still muttering incomprehensibly, but the laudanum was effectively keeping her steady, preventing any violent swings in and out of consciousness. She flinched frequently as he manipulated her infected flesh, though he noticed she did not whimper.

It was unnerving to see Manon – defensive, fiery, self-sufficient Manon – in so pathetic a state. Her moans of before, her shudders, and her flinches were all on a level of vulnerability that she seemed to completely lack in her everyday countenance. It took the cumulative effects of fever, laudanum, and blood, it appeared, to allow them to brush her surface.

(He shuddered, yet though he sensed the gravity of this, he was not confused by it, as some may have been. It was too familiar to surprise him.)

Yet this gentleness, this…sweetness…the lines of her face softened, and her voice un-roughened by wariness – was magnetic in a way he had never experienced. Every fiber of him was aware of its rarity, and he roved over it with a fascination that shocked and unnerved him.

Erik squirmed slightly as these sentiments registered, while his hands worked, rubbing a thick salve on the stitches, methodically, undisturbed.

* * *

Through a haze, she felt cool, gentle pressure on her throbbing side. She wanted to hum, sing, cry with relief.

Manon felt as if she were blundering drunkenly through a world muffled by cotton. She couldn't string together where she'd been, where or when she was, or process any of the sensations in her body save for that heavenly coolness.

She veered woozily in and out of the cotton-world, rising up briefly to touch a world of pulsating pain and pleasant pressure, disliking it, drifting back down into an effortless, senseless lull.

She could only remember the sensations – cold, then _pain_, then fire – as she drifted back and forth in this thick-minded limbo through which she was slowly stumbling.

Again, that pressure- finger, ah, fingers! And strong, stringent-smelling stuff. Manon felt herself tugged irresistibly to the conscious realm, away from the blissfully wooly darkness and towards the prickly surface.

(The laudanum, however, had other ideas, keeping its opiated tendrils snaked around her mind).

She dragged her eyes drunkenly open, still caught between worlds of consciousness.

She registered a tall, masked man sitting close to her. Who- oh, yes. Erik? Yes, Erik. He would be the source of the fingers.

Manon was just conscious enough to notice the worried creases in Erik's face, the unmasked side clearing as she smiled lazily. It looked as if he were breathing all of a sudden, after forgetting to for a long time. She liked his face like that. Such a nice face.

Manon let her slow gaze travel over the now-relaxed lines of Erik's visage. She lifted her right arm– so, _so_ heavy – and she touched the faint lines around his eyes, his brow, his mouth.

Mmm. This was nice. Manon breathed deeply as she felt the strength and warmth of the face –Erik's, yes, Erik's face – grow heavy in her palm, his eyes closing briefly as he sighed slightly, just like her.

Manon's fingers continued. Her arm was still heavier than she could hold up for much longer, but her fingers…her fingers were curious, holding up her arm for her. They felt many landscapes – thick, smooth strands of his hair, hanging down. Smoothness of a cheek. Rough terrain near the jaw. Firm softness of lips, and then..? Ah, yes, it was the mask.

Once Manon's fingers reached the edge of his mask, they began to trail lightly down its edge, and Erik stiffened, quickly grasping her wrist, gently but firmly, and bringing it decisively back down to her side. She seemed not to mind, breathing deeply again and folding her hands across her waist.

She raised her eyes to him absentmindedly.

"You fixed me," she said to him, mumbling delicately.

Erik's face relaxed into a smile.

"Yes, Manon, I fixed you," he chuckled, leaning back for a moment before leaning forward again to swat away her wandering fingers which were creeping down towards her stitches.

"Leave this salve on there. It is pungent, I know – honey, garlic, a few other things that alleviate infection. You'll need to sleep if it's to do you any good, though. And you will _not_be touching it," he added as he swiped away her other hand which looked ready to do just that, "much less doing anything else for the moment. Understood?"

"What's that? Does that mean no dancing, then?" she slurred, making to poke him in the ribs, but barely managing to lift her hand.

Erik rolled his eyes, amused. There was that cheek again.

He bent to arrange the cover around her legs, not wanting to risk fever chills after having gotten her wound in order, but Manon made a noise of protest, kicking feebly.

"Erik...please, I'm...boiling…no covers..." but Erik gave her a look. She missed it entirely, but as she kicked again her face flinched slightly and she gave up, her head rolling to the side as she grunted.

Erik frowned as he finished tucking things in around her legs. Tentatively, he reached up and pressed her wound again. When she recoiled away from him, he knew that the laudanum hadn't been enough.

How was that possible? He'd given her enough to knock out a horse, let alone a slender woman.

He continue to frown as he reached for the brown bottle and swirled several more of its drops in the water glass. No virgin to the effects of the opiate would ever have a tolerance that high. When in the hell had she had laudanum before?

"Here. Sit up, and drink this," Erik commanded, pushing her gently into a sitting position. She frowned at him but sat up, narrowing her eyes both in suspicion and in attempts to focus on the drink he was pushing on her.

He could tell from her expression that the pain was registering more clearly, though her foggy demeanor indicated that the drug was clearly having some effect on her. Nevertheless, she would drink whether she liked it or not.

"What's this swill?" she asked.

He sighed. "Water, my dear. Necessary to life, and all that." He tipped it closer to her lips.

"Ohh, you men and your logic," Manon muttered, giving in. She drank it clumsily, spilling only a bit – she frowned briefly. Was that recognition Erik saw in her face? – then slumped back on the pillows and eyed him blearily, and began speaking again, slurring her words more than before.

"I'm clever too, you know….women's…intuition…you wouldn't understand, you and your manly logic…"

Erik fought the urge to laugh. He'd almost forgotten the lack of inhibitions and messy ramblings of those under the influence of laudanum. What was she going on about?

"Don't _you_ smirk at _me_, son. Don't you realize that I see through you? You…you all think you know…everything. All about…what's best for me…"

Erik's desire to laugh faded. Manon slipped further under the laudanum's influence.

"Manon, why don't you close your eyes-" but she plowed drunkenly on.

"Oooh, yes. Men. You've got aaall the answers, haven't you. 'Do this, Manon,'…. they say…and…. 'don't do… that,'…and…and….. 'drink this and obey!' and 'I'm your father… I know what's best for you'….."

"Your father?" Erik asked, taken aback.

She gasped theatrically, her eyes slightly crossed.

"My…dear..! The vainglorious...the vain… and glorious….the…Edward….Moreau! Oh, you bumpkin…don't you know, the…marvelous, hideous, gratuitous Moreau….." Her face had taken on a strange, dispossessed air, her far-away expression mixing with a look that was both cynical and pained. She hung her head.

"I'm his daughter, you know," she murmured in a confidential whisper. She glanced around suddenly, nervously, as if expecting this Edward Moreau to leap out from behind the armoire.

Erik stared at her. Manon's hair was a mess, tousled and sticking to her face and neck. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, squinting at him, half present, half in her mind. Her cheeks were flushed, and her brows were furrowed in a manner that was almost comically didactic as she slurred on.

Erik wasn't entirely sure how to respond to this. He decided to take what seemed like the path of the least belligerence until the laudanum took full effect and brought her to sleep once more.

"Your father was…protective?"

Manon let out a very unladylike snort in response. "Protective of the family jewels, if you know what I meeaan!" she cackled. "Ohh yes, he protected me…from all those nasty books he…protected me…"

Her eyes slid half shut now and she settled more heavily into the bed. Erik was still sitting close to her, still holding the empty water glass. Manon's body unconsciously leaned a bit towards him, as if hungry for their closeness of the night before. She herself didn't seem to realize this, as she was still chuckling, hollowly and drunkenly to herself.

Erik stared at her. He set the glass down on the floor and looked into her face.

"Your father is the reason you cannot read?"

"The daughter…of Edward Moreau? Go to _school_? Please…..my dear boy…" Her eyes slid fully closed as she continued. "How induuulgent, how perfectly…_revolutionary_… might go giving me _ideas_…Moreau women…are not so…pedestrian…"

Erik's jaw clenched, slowly, as he willed himself not to cut her off, shake her and demand clear answers to the hundreds of questions which were springing up in his mind. He could see that sleep was beginning to claim her, leaving him to expire of a menacing curiosity. His mind was beginning to build into a familiar growl.

Meanwhile, Manon blundered on –

"Haaa, haa, ha….Just something else I can't do…eh, Moreau! Save the expense…the shame. Ohh, you…_men_…so clever, sooo clever…"

Erik could see that she was fading fast, and so he eased her away from him, settling her down into the bed – but he couldn't help but catch her head as she sank down, hesitated, then held her face with both hands, searching her face, needing to read her eyes, to understand.

For a brief, unexpected moment of perfect lucidity, Manon's dark eyes caught his. They held them, searching just as intently as he was searching hers.

But the moment passed, and her mind surrendered its battle against sleep. Her eyes unfocused and drifted closed again as he released her gently, and Erik sat there by her side, yet again, as she slept deeply.


	11. Tangles, Indeed

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

* * *

After several long minutes of sitting beside Manon, lost in his thoughts and in the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, Erik finally got up and left the room. It felt odd to put distance between them after the intensity of their closeness of the last days. Still, he busied himself mindlessly for a while before finally retreating to his study, to his desk and tinkering with some contraption or other while his mind worked and whirred far more energetically than his hands did.

Moreau….Edward Moreau? He vaguely recalled the name, but exactly where he knew it from uncharacteristically eluded him…the harder he tried to place it, the less clear it became.

Erik uselessly occupied his hands in this way for a whole twenty minutes before he gave in to the urge to return to Manon, look at her frustratedly, penetratingly, and to continue pacing beside her bed.

He was beyond the point of maintaining his aloof wariness of her. Erik's mind, starved too long for the pleasure of dwelling on something as fascinating and complicated as the woman who had turned up on his doorstep, simply disregarded his reserve and allowed itself to be consumed by his curiosity.

Before long he had sat down beside her, again, staring at her and uselessly turning over and over the fragmented bits he'd acquired, trying to make order of their nonsense.

"What sort of tangles are these that you've brought to my doorstep, Mademoiselle Moreau?" Erik muttered to himself, brushing her hair off her face again, absently, possessively.

Still with that inexplicable bit of sass, his fingers continue on their crusade of insolence, lingering on her cheek…her collarbone…. lower….they had made it the faded damp lace of the collar of her chemise before he snatched them back, rising again in self-chastisement. He was going to leave for real this time. He had a symphony in pitiful need of attention.

Erik reached the door and did allow himself one final, guiltily, lingering glimpse of Manon's sprawled figure, covered to the waist in blankets and furs. She looked eerie and elegant, draped behind black gossamer bed hangings, an exhausted doe veiled in ghoulish ferns.

Erik was just about to turn away when his eyes caught on a spot directly between her breasts, a spot at which he had no business looking, but which his wandering fingers had evidently uncovered before he had pulled them away.

Was that…a shadow? The curtains?

Frowning, he craned his neck to the side, and to his fascination, the strange mark didn't move. Warily, he stepped closer, peering directly at it. Lifting the curtain, Erik bent stiffly towards Manon and brushed the lace at her chest aside slightly, glancing quickly down, almost nervous that if he looked too closely she would wake up. Another quick glance.

Was it…a tattoo? For some reason Erik almost laughed in relief. What a strange thing, he thought, glancing at it again. A fleur de lis.

Erik was just getting up when his damned fingers allowed themselves to brush against the sinuous design – and stopped.

Incredulously, and suddenly without hesitation, he turned back towards Manon and yanked the material firmly down so that he could see this mark properly, and brushed his fingertips over it again.

It was raised.

What to the casual eye looked like a decoration was no tattoo at all. It was a brand.


	12. The Hiatus Broken

An hour passed. Then two, then three, then ten, and then a day. Erik felt like chewing his nails until his fingers were stumps.

A brand? A _brand_? He spent hours searching pointlessly for answers – in his music, in his library, in his lake, in his music again – but found only concern and frustration.

It wasn't until halfway through the second day of Manon's recuperation – still unconscious, though her fever had finally broken – that he managed to throttle his mind and nerves into calmness and silence. When finally, while grinding out pages of writing that did not want to be written, he heard stirring from the direction of the bed and vaulted towards his room, scattering papers which then fluttered into the lake like confetti.

"Manon!"

Breathless, he yanked open the curtains to reveal a dozy-eyed Manon Moreau, lying supine, but awake. Alive. She had a sleepy, vague expression, smiling and frowning at the same time, shy for the first time he'd known her. Awake. Alive. Looking up at him like she hadn't seen him in years.

Something was roaring in his ears, drowning out his thoughts and tying his tongue. A wordless energy pulsed through his head and throat and stomach – relief, satisfaction, and a hundred other things muddled together. Manon Moreau had not died. She lived. And she was looking at him with an expression which included pleasure.

Still blinking sleep out of her eyes in an accidentally yet utterly fetching way, she breathed in deeply and exhaled drowsily. She gazed at him with pre-dawn eyes.

"Hello, Erik."

* * *

Manon's head felt like a battered piece of fruit, her hair felt like the pelt of a dead animal, and her side felt as if it had been kicked in by a horse. Yet she felt hot blood in her veins and a growling in her stomach.

With no idea of how she'd gotten where she was or why her body felt as it did, bizarrely, all Manon felt at the moment was a bizarre mist of shyness and uncertainty. What was more, it had meshed with a strange and inexplicable joy bubbling up in her chest at the sight of Erik le Phantôm before her. _What the hell?_ Affection, relief, possessiveness and gratitude had braided into a mystifying knot in her chest that had apparently taken up residence since the last time she'd been awake.

He was standing at the door, his hands at his sides, mask and face expressionless, eyes riveted on her. They burned with startling intensity as they roved over her and Manon's stomach swooped with an unexpected pleasure. As he began to walk towards the bedside in slow, measured steps, she could sense an immense energy pent up in him. Yet her faced seemed unable to keep from smiling. God, it was so _good_ to see him, to have him here! Confused but too tired to care, she let her eyes follow him the whole time, full of the smile to which her face was still unable to commit.

Erik reached the bed and looked down at her, and sank down on the bed beside her. A long-suffering half-grin settled across his features.

"Good afternoon, my dear."

She grinned in response.

"Quite the night you've had – or shall I say nights. Such a fever, I have never seen!" he paused.b

"I…I confess, I am thrilled you made it through."

"As am I, believe it or not."

She expelled a shaky half-breath-half-laugh, then paused, finding it difficult to own this new sense of joy and safety she felt at seeing him, this surety that he had labored to save her life, and this guileless gratitude for it. _Why aren't I afraid of him anymore? _ The thought came to her suddenly. The wary companionship of before had dissolved unexpectedly, melted, and regrouped into this altogether new, strangely comfortable, thrilling yet foreign dynamic.

However. First things first.

She squinted at him. "I do admit to a certain…hmm…I don't recall much at all of what has brought us to this moment…"

Erik hesitated. He opened his mouth and closed it again, looking abruptly uncomfortable. He pulled vaguely at his collar as if he were suddenly warm.

"What _do_ you recall, Manon? Not only did you have a raging fever from an infection in your wound, but I had to give you laudanum in order to operate effectively on it. I very much doubt if you remembered much at all aside from any fever dreams."

"I… fever? You _what?_ Laudanum? Erik, what the hell happened?"

Ignoring how her heart seemed to pound even louder and more nervously as she used his name again – not "monsieur" – Manon racked her brain, alarmed and unnerved at apparently having been unconscious for so long. Had the gendarmes returned? What else had happened?

Erik looked at her, his face revealing a cautious curiosity, but nothing more. She continued ranting nervously.

"I remember bathing, and Sorelli's wardrobe, but what after that? We…we talked in the tunnels…and you…you…"

Her eyes scrunched confusedly. Then they flew open, staring at him full in the face.

"Y_ou._"

A shred of memory had come slinking back to her. Manon glanced at Erik, and – ah – there. She caught a flash of guilt as it flickered across the visible half of his face, for the briefest of moments, before becoming as masked and impassive as the cold porcelain shielding the rest of him. This, at least, was no fever-dream she was remembering. That much he had just confirmed.

The images swam lazily together in her mind's eye. The flinging of disparaging remarks. The flinging of the lantern. His presumptuous taunts. Her spirited hand gestures. For a moment, she felt the same rising indignation, but as she lifted her eyes again to the Phantom's face, she saw the shadow of anxiety that was edging in on his otherwise calm expression, and her momentary anger withered at once. She chose to simply level her gaze at him.

"We had a conversation, didn't we."

Manon's tone made it clear that she did in fact fully recall the exact nature of this conversation.

The Phantom paused, evidently pleased at her calmness, seemingly unsure if he was really off the hook.

"Well…yes. And if you'll recall, you opted to search for the exit, er, unaccompanied."

Manon did not fail to notice the faint note of contrition which colored these words. An unexpected rush of affection flooded her. Struggling to swat it away, she made an effort to connect the next events which would have brought her to a sickbed. It proved a challenge.

"Ah, yes. 'Search for the exit unaccompanied.' Well." She treated him to an eye roll before continuing. "To be honest, after that, all I can recall is in a muddle."

"This is not surprising. Your wound, Manon, was violently infected when I found you. In the lake," he elaborated in response to her bewildered look. "I found you floating in the lake, over an hour after you left. I can only assume that the infection began to peak then. It's entirely likely that the fever overtook you and you wound up unconscious in the water. We are lucky," he concluded as he leaned back and began to unbutton and cuff his sleeves up his forearms "that you were still alive when you floated my way."

He continued to watch her steadily as he pushed his sleeves up his arms and shifted to sit on a stool nearby, dragging it close to her and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. That lingering smile began to tug again at his features.

"You put up one hell of a fight, my dear."

Manon smiled before she could stop herself. It was incredible how that shadow of a smirk dispelled the rising nervousness she felt – the point at which her rising joy at seeing him again had begun to dim at the onset of her returning accustomed prickliness. She could breathe so much more deeply and focus all the more easily on his gaze. Manon tried to pull together something to say, and found that a jumble of nervous verbosity was about all she could muster. She struggled to use the fewest words possible.

"I owe you my thanks, Erik." She exhaled sharply, unused to and made nervous by the naked candor of the statement. Before her nerve withered away, she plowed on, knowing even in that post-laudanum haze (or indeed, perhaps because of it) that the giddy inclination to give him clear and simple and honest thanks would not be an easy one to drum up later.

"I am beginning to lose count of the number of times that you saved my life, Monsieur Erik. Although," a briefly teasing smile flicked across her earnest expression, "in the time since I have made your acquaintance, the number of incidents in which my life needs saving have indeed become suspiciously frequent."

She narrowed her eyes in coy mock-suspicion at him. "How very fortuitous that we've made one another's acquaintance..."

He answered with his own laugh, spreading his arms grandly and swinging his booted feet onto the bed. "But mademoiselle, it gives me so much to _do!_" he said with mock sincerity. "And to think that when you are properly healed, I shall have no more excuses to first sabotage, then rescue you. A dreary prospect, to be sure."

Manon snorted with laughter at his expression. She shrugged piously, as if providing him with such opportunities were a public service.

Yet she sobered quickly, meeting his eye again, and returned to her previous thread before she lost the nerve. Her heart began thudding, nervous adrenaline weakening her knees and thinning her voice.

"As you may have guessed, after you found me searching for a place to sleep in the theater, I have few resources and fewer friends…but whatever your reasons for taking me in, your home has been a safer place to stay than I have ever been in, and–"

But Erik's hand lifted as he tilted his head suddenly, signaling her to stop. She frowned and made to continue, but he leaned forward and grasped her shoulders and cut her off.

"Ma chérie," he said, slowly and clearly, catching her gaze in his and holding it for a moment before continuing, a sudden smolder entering his eyes, "friends, resources, gendarmes, unhealed wound or no…for the time being, you are here to stay."

Manon stared at him, nodding deeply and slowly, showing her thanks at this apparent understanding and continuing graciousness.

She was nevertheless unable to ignore the shiver that blossomed up under her spine at the ominous finality of his words.


	13. A Restless Calm

_"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic."_

* * *

In the days that followed, Erik and Manon (for they had begun to refer to one another as such, as if somewhere between the lantern-swinging and the laudanum-drugging, trivialities such as formal address had become moot) fell into a comfortable sort of routine.

Now that Manon's fever had broken, her healing wound was a much more stable and upward affair. She was able to walk with considerably more strength than she had had the previous week. True, Erik had reprised his scooping-up routing more times than Manon would have cared to admit, ("perhaps you would care to dine on the floor as well, mademoiselle? You certainly seem to enjoy the view from here…"), but she was now managing to limp from the bed to his study using minimal wall support. She was also spending longer periods of time awake. Erik was still firmly banishing her from wakefulness the moment the wall clock struck 8, and refusing to acknowledge her existence earlier than 9 the following morning, but her need for midday rest was becoming less and less frequent.

All the while, Erik's mind rove relentlessly over the tiny fleur de lis mark, _brand_, that held such a world of questions, over the words Manon had muttered as she lay under her fever. It had taken a great deal of restraint not to demand it of her, force her to tell him. But for no particular reason, he had decided to wait – whether it was for her to be ready to tell him, or for his own control to snap, he didn't know – but he limited his displays of curiosity to observing her more closely, trying to connect the woman he was getting to know to the rambling confessions of the patient he'd doctored.

Erik himself had taken to sleeping on the chaise in his library. His ever-traitorous body protested at this, wanting to repeat the night of entwinement with Manon. He crushed this impulse ruthlessly – the last thing he needed was another mutiny, especially now that Manon had moved on from the convenient fever which had enabled it before.

He trembled on those few occasions when he allowed his mind to wander back to that night. The sensation of physical intimacy had been shocking. In the evenings, when he had sent Manon back to his bedchamber (or carried her, if she were being feisty) and he sat alone among his books, contraptions, music and journals, his mind would lapse, his eyes become unfocused, whatever he was holding slip quietly from his grasp, as his mind lingered over the remembered sensation of her hips aligned with his…his leg slipping between hers…her waist cradled in the crook of his arm…her breath, soft against his throat…

He had never felt that before. Never felt the sensation of stretching out against the mystery of the female body. He had dreamed, schemed…had clasped Christine's body to his own, alive with a tremulous thrill…but never just _held_ one, slept with one, cradled one so intimately. Learned the weight and feel and fall of one's legs and arms, the hollows and curves of one's back. _God, if only he had been able to do that with his angel…_

Yet even as Erik yearned for it, pained over it, dreamt of it, even went so far as to try to imagine it had been Christine instead of Manon he had held…the pieces somehow did not lock together anymore. The leap between the women was less easy now. Manon was too different and too imminent…too _real_ to serve as a proxy. She was occupying more independent space in his mind than he would have thought possible. The two women lived on different planes entirely. His fantasies now about Christine were becoming less acute, less real, and suddenly terrifying for the sense that he was losing her even as he began to know a sense of stillness he had never known since falling in love with her. The ecstatic pain with which he had once adored her was dulling infinitesimally, even ebbing. In the recent weeks, while it ached in new corners of his soul, it had somehow become more quiet than deafening, more poignant than tragic.

He was no fool; Manon, it was evident, had much to do with it – but he didn't, couldn't, _wouldn't_ consider how. He only knew, as deeply and surely as he'd ever known anything, that that prospect of his new companion leaving was utterly unacceptable.

But it wasn't often that he let himself think on that so directly. It was too confusing, too alarming, too unknown.

It terrified him.

Instead, he had begun to play music again, for the first time since Manon had begun to live in his lair. There came a day when, unthinkingly, as Manon dozed and he absentmindedly adjusted the French horn part of a concerto, that he drifted over to his organ to play it out, straighten the crooked line that didn't feel quite right, and he found himself forgetting about the snagged measure and instead playing on through the rest of the piece. He roamed around it, playing pensively, playing with feeling, experimenting, suddenly and quite naturally able to concentrate with the unthinking clarity of a blank-mind-full-heart which had so eluded him the last two years since the disaster. Music since that time had been an exercise in pain, in violent expression, in grinding out his soul to an invisible companion, to a world with no audience, to his absolute loneliness. This creative fullness and calmness felt new and fertile and unfamiliar and _wonderful_…

It was only after several minutes that he looked up, coming to himself, and saw Manon, looking at him, stock-still, from the other room. She was wearing the midnight-blue dressing gown and an inscrutable expression, motionless as she stared. Erik couldn't seem to speak, but surprised himself by not feeling the rage of sudden vulnerability. He felt a quivering sense of one who is at the edge of the inevitable, of a precipice, and looks over into the abyss, simultaneously knowing everything and nothing, curiously calm and present and liberated from one's own mind.

Staring back into Manon's dark eyes, which he now saw held no mockery or disdain, but an unreadable fullness, Erik gave her a curt nod and left her, still standing there, suddenly needing to feel the cold certainty of the lake on his skin.

* * *

There came a day in their newfound quiet camaraderie that Erik began to notice Manon becoming fidgety. Her attention span was shorter. Her questions became longer. She paced and she paced, had even asked if she could swim in the lake (which he had flatly refused to allow on account of her stitches), and had now begun poking around his contraptions and knickknacks. One memorable afternoon she had attempted to make their tea herself, heaping spices in pell-mell and burning the milk, emerging with two mugs of unpalatable swill that caused Erik to gag, but caused also an unfamiliar tightening in his chest as he doggedly choked it down that had nothing to do with the bad taste.

In short, Manon was restless. He had assumed she would get to this point; after the rest-intensive days of recuperation, without diversion a person could go mad. Especially a person so accustomed to motion and activity as she clearly was. There was only so much a person could be expected to handle.

"Manon," Erik asked casually one day, as he was editing the concerto at his desk, Manon seated on his chaise, trying her hand at sketching. "Would you like to learn how to read?"

Manon's pen slowed mid-stroke.

She turned her head towards him infinitesimally, her profile facing him, eyes fixed to her mediocre rendition of the grotto. She stayed like that for a long minute, before turning her head, eyes inscrutable, looking him fully in the face.

"Yes."


End file.
